SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States)

static111

I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Obama didn't just seat Garland when McConell refused to do his job. 

gimmesometruth27

static111 said:

I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Obama didn't just seat Garland when McConell refused to do his job. 

i think it is because the senate is who votes on confirmation. if the majority leader does not hold hearings of a vote nothing can happen. from what i recall obama did nominate him but mcconnell did not follow the process.

static111

gimmesometruth27 said:

static111 said:

I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Obama didn't just seat Garland when McConell refused to do his job. 

i think it is because the senate is who votes on confirmation. if the majority leader does not hold hearings of a vote nothing can happen. from what i recall obama did nominate him but mcconnell did not follow the process.

Right, so what doesn't make sense to me is not saying fuck you and putting him on the bench and putting it to the court at least. The Senate chose not to do their job and obstructed the will of the people that voted Obama in.  I don't think that the constitution says that the senate will provide advise and consent unless it is too close to an election.  For all of the originalist talk that is going on lately I'm not sure where the unless it is too close to an election clause is.  

mickeyrat

MayDay10 said:

IMO, each presidential term should come with a Supreme Court nomination with some sort of safeguard that congress cannot simply block every attempt and they need to agree on something.  Its appalling that a 1-term president who lost the popular vote was able to select 40% of the court and shape our laws long-term.

18 yr  terms. one justice rotating off every 2 years......

gimmesometruth27

static111 said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

static111 said:

I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Obama didn't just seat Garland when McConell refused to do his job. 

i think it is because the senate is who votes on confirmation. if the majority leader does not hold hearings of a vote nothing can happen. from what i recall obama did nominate him but mcconnell did not follow the process.

Right, so what doesn't make sense to me is not saying fuck you and putting him on the bench and putting it to the court at least. The Senate chose not to do their job and obstructed the will of the people that voted Obama in.  I don't think that the constitution says that the senate will provide advise and consent unless it is too close to an election.  For all of the originalist talk that is going on lately I'm not sure where the unless it is too close to an election clause is.  

i don't think it is in there either. they just made that part up and democrats just took it. i guess nobody knew what what coming down the line. still though, that ended up being a watershed moment in our history and it ended up being bigger than anybody expected.

HughFreakingDillon

democrat leadership is useless. they are the martin prince to the republican's nelson muntz

mickeyrat

gimmesometruth27 said:

static111 said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

static111 said:

I still haven't heard a good explanation as to why Obama didn't just seat Garland when McConell refused to do his job. 

i think it is because the senate is who votes on confirmation. if the majority leader does not hold hearings of a vote nothing can happen. from what i recall obama did nominate him but mcconnell did not follow the process.

Right, so what doesn't make sense to me is not saying fuck you and putting him on the bench and putting it to the court at least. The Senate chose not to do their job and obstructed the will of the people that voted Obama in.  I don't think that the constitution says that the senate will provide advise and consent unless it is too close to an election.  For all of the originalist talk that is going on lately I'm not sure where the unless it is too close to an election clause is.  

i don't think it is in there either. they just made that part up and democrats just took it. i guess nobody knew what what coming down the line. still though, that ended up being a watershed moment in our history and it ended up being bigger than anybody expected.

coulda seen this coming. McConnell obstructing Obamas choices all that time.....

Halifax2TheMax

I believe Obama could have done a recess appointment when the senate was out of session but chose not too as he didn’t want to break with tradition and by doing so the repubs would do the same. He took the high road out of respect for the chamber and it’s traditions. POOTWH broke everything and Moscow Mitchy Baby took a big shit on Obama and the Dems. And here we are.

HughFreakingDillon

at least 30-40 years of regression. how fucking depressing

cblock4life

Halifax2TheMax said:

I believe Obama could have done a recess appointment when the senate was out of session but chose not too as he didn’t want to break with tradition and by doing so the repubs would do the same. He took the high road out of respect for the chamber and it’s traditions. POOTWH broke everything and Moscow Mitchy Baby took a big shit on Obama and the Dems. And here we are.

Yes, the high road makes you the good guy and good guys finish last.  It really doesn’t pay anymore to be a decent human with all this scum making/changing the rules.  Once again you’re right.  My husband and I have discussed leaving this country, but with very young grandchildren (we’ve been waiting 38 years for) just not sure we’re ready to leave them.  

As I’m watching the protests going on across the country I’m just hoping all these people realize that the only way to stop this madness is to vote.  

josevolution

McConnell put it right in front of our faces he stated his number one goal was to obstruct anything put forth by Obama! Or for that matter any democrat legislative bill, Obama and his party were pussyfooting everything as if it would just work out and it did just like McConnell panned it! Fuck this country and it’s flag waving idiots that flag will never fly on my house again ever! 

mrussel1

I don't think there was a way to get Garland on the court.  Recess appointment is a stretch but he would still be required to receive consent from the senate once they were back.  And that assumes Roberts would have even sworn him in,  which I don't think would have happened. 

Lerxst1992

dankind said:

Did anyone ever think that this would turn out to be the most extreme branch of US government? 

Seriously, who picked SCOTUS as the HBIC in their grade school textbook branch triumvirate diagrams?

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-justices-previous-roe-abortion-comments-senate-1e8d445b6db9067ca69af402debf2b18

 

Abortion U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito Planned Parenthood Congress Government and politics Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan

What GOP-named justices had said about Roe to Senate panel

By KEVIN FREKING

Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nine justices of the Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling Friday, made clear their views on abortion, with the conservative majority overturning the Roe v. Wade decision from 1973 and stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion.

The vote was 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks, but Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t join his five fellow conservatives in overturning Roe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedents to rule in Mississippi’s favor.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to abortion, were wrong had and to be overturned. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — the diminished liberal wing of the court — were in dissent.

Every high court nominee, in one form or another, was asked during Senate hearings about his or her views of Roe. A look at how the Republican-nominated justices responded over the years when questioned by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee before joining the court:

AMY CONEY BARRETT, 2020:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, then the top Democrat on the committee, asked Barrett: “So the question comes, what happens? Will this justice support a law that has substantial precedent now? Would you commit yourself on whether you would or would not?"

---

ABORTION

Is abortion illegal in the U.S. now? Depends where you live

Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent?

Supreme Court conservatives flex muscle in sweeping rulings

Dems hope to harness outrage, sadness after abortion ruling

“Senator, what I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis," Barrett replied, referring to the doctrine of courts giving weight to precedent when making their decisions.

Barrett went on to say that she would do that for “any issue that comes up, abortion or anything else. I'll follow the law.“

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Barrett whether she viewed Roe v. Wade as a “super precedent." Barrett replied that the way the term is used in “scholarship" and the way she had used it in an article was to define cases so well settled that people do not seriously push for its overruling.

“And I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn’t fall in that category," Barrett said.

The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion put in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overrule Roe v. Wade. The outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. (June 24)

___

BRETT KAVANAUGH, 2018: It was Feinstein who also asked Kavanaugh, “What would you say your position today is on a woman’s right to choose?”

“As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. By ‘it,’ I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They have been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent, which itself is an important factor to remember," Kavanaugh said.

Casey was a 1992 decision that reaffirmed a constitutional right to abortion services.

Kavanaugh went on to say that he understood the significance of the issue. “I always try and I do hear of the real world effects of that decision, as I try to do, of all the decisions of my court and of the Supreme Court.”

___

NEIL GORSUCH, 2017:

With President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nomination, it was Sen. Charles Grassley. R-Iowa, who asked point-blank: “Can you tell me whether Roe was decided correctly?

Gorsuch replied: “I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”

___

ROBERTS, 2005

The late Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked of the now-chief justice, who was a federal appeals court judge when nominated: “In your confirmation hearing for circuit court, your testimony read to this effect, and it has been widely quoted: ‘Roe is the settled law of the land.’ Do you mean settled for you, settled only for your capacity as a circuit judge, or settled beyond that?"

Roberts replied: “It’s settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not. And it is settled as a precedent of the Court, yes.”

___

ALITO, 2006

Specter, who was unabashedly supportive of Roe v. Wade, observed during Alito's hearings that the “dominant issue" was the “widespread concern" about Alito's position on a woman's right to choose. The issue arose because of a 1985 statement by Alito that the Constitution does not provide for the right to an abortion, Specter declared.

“Do you agree with that statement today, Judge Alito?" Specter asked.

“Well, that was a correct statement of what I thought in 1985 from my vantage point in 1985, and that was as a line attorney in the Department of Justice in the Reagan administration.

“Today if the issue were to come before me, if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed and the issue were to come before me, the first question would be the question that we’ve been discussing, and that’s the issue of stare decisis," Alito said. “And if the analysis were to get beyond that point, then I would approach the question with an open mind, and I would listen to the arguments that were made."

“So you would approach it with an open mind notwithstanding your 1985 statement?" Specter asked.

“Absolutely, senator. That was a statement that I made at a prior period of time when I was performing a different role, and as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things that you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career and think about legal issues the way a judge thinks about legal issues."

Alito was the author of the leaked draft opinion, which declares the ruling in Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong from the start."

___

CLARENCE THOMAS, 1991:

The late Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, recalled chairing a committee hearing and listening to women maimed by “back-alley abortionists." He said he was “terrified if we turn back the clock on legal abortion services."

In questioning Thomas the senator said: “I want to ask you once again, of appealing to your sense of compassion, whether or not you believe the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion?"

Thomas replied: “I guess as a kid we heard the hushed whispers about illegal abortions and individuals performing them in less than safe environments, but they were whispers. It would, of course, if a woman is subjected to the agony of an environment like that, on a personal level, certainly, I am very, very pained by that. I think any of us would be."

Thomas declined though to give his opinion “on the issue, the question that you asked me."

“I think it would undermine my ability to sit in an impartial way on an important case like that," he said.

HughFreakingDillon

impeach all those that lied under questioning during confirmation hearings. 

GlowGirl

All a bunch of lying hypocrites. 

mace1229

HughFreakingDillon said:

impeach all those that lied under questioning during confirmation hearings. 

I don’t see how that is possible. For one, don’t they discuss and debate these topics? All they’d have to say is that is what they believed when questioned, but changed their opinion during the process of the case.

hedonist

GlowGirl said:

All a bunch of lying hypocrites. 

Amen, sister. 

mickeyrat

mace1229 said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

impeach all those that lied under questioning during confirmation hearings. 

I don’t see how that is possible. For one, don’t they discuss and debate these topics? All they’d have to say is that is what they believed when questioned, but changed their opinion during the process of the case.

all of them spoke of respecting the precedent. this decision does the opposite and based on flawed history.

so yeah. they lied.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-justices-previous-roe-abortion-comments-senate-1e8d445b6db9067ca69af402debf2b18

 Abortion U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito Planned Parenthood Congress Government and politics Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan What GOP-named justices had said about Roe to Senate panel By KEVIN FREKING Today WASHINGTON (AP) —

The nine justices of the Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling Friday, made clear their views on abortion, with the conservative majority overturning the Roe v. Wade decision from 1973 and stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion. 

The vote was 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s law banning most abortions after 15 weeks, but Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t join his five fellow conservatives in overturning Roe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedents to rule in Mississippi’s favor. 

Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to abortion, were wrong had and to be overturned. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — the diminished liberal wing of the court — were in dissent. 

Every high court nominee, in one form or another, was asked during Senate hearings about his or her views of Roe. A look at how the Republican-nominated justices responded over the years when questioned by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee before joining the court: 

AMY CONEY BARRETT, 2020:  Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, then the top Democrat on the committee, asked Barrett: “So the question comes, what happens? Will this justice support a law that has substantial precedent now? Would you commit yourself on whether you would or would not?" 

ABORTION  Is abortion illegal in the U.S. now? Depends where you live  Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent?  Supreme Court conservatives flex muscle in sweeping rulings  Dems hope to harness outrage, sadness after abortion ruling  “Senator, what I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis," Barrett replied, referring to the doctrine of courts giving weight to precedent when making their decisions.  Barrett went on to say that she would do that for “any issue that comes up, abortion or anything else. I'll follow the law.“ 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Barrett whether she viewed Roe v. Wade as a “super precedent." Barrett replied that the way the term is used in “scholarship" and the way she had used it in an article was to define cases so well settled that people do not seriously push for its overruling.  “And I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn’t fall in that category," Barrett said.  

The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion put in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overrule Roe v. Wade. The outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. (June 24) ___ 

BRETT KAVANAUGH, 2018: It was Feinstein who also asked Kavanaugh, “What would you say your position today is on a woman’s right to choose?”  “As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. By ‘it,’ I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They have been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent, which itself is an important factor to remember," Kavanaugh said.  Casey was a 1992 decision that reaffirmed a constitutional right to abortion services.  Kavanaugh went on to say that he understood the significance of the issue. “I always try and I do hear of the real world effects of that decision, as I try to do, of all the decisions of my court and of the Supreme Court.”  ___ 

NEIL GORSUCH, 2017:  With President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nomination, it was Sen. Charles Grassley. R-Iowa, who asked point-blank: “Can you tell me whether Roe was decided correctly?  Gorsuch replied: “I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”  ___

 ROBERTS, 2005  The late Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked of the now-chief justice, who was a federal appeals court judge when nominated: “In your confirmation hearing for circuit court, your testimony read to this effect, and it has been widely quoted: ‘Roe is the settled law of the land.’ Do you mean settled for you, settled only for your capacity as a circuit judge, or settled beyond that?"  Roberts replied: “It’s settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not. And it is settled as a precedent of the Court, yes.”  ___ 

ALITO, 2006  Specter, who was unabashedly supportive of Roe v. Wade, observed during Alito's hearings that the “dominant issue" was the “widespread concern" about Alito's position on a woman's right to choose. The issue arose because of a 1985 statement by Alito that the Constitution does not provide for the right to an abortion, Specter declared.  “Do you agree with that statement today, Judge Alito?" Specter asked.  “Well, that was a correct statement of what I thought in 1985 from my vantage point in 1985, and that was as a line attorney in the Department of Justice in the Reagan administration.  “Today if the issue were to come before me, if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed and the issue were to come before me, the first question would be the question that we’ve been discussing, and that’s the issue of stare decisis," Alito said. “And if the analysis were to get beyond that point, then I would approach the question with an open mind, and I would listen to the arguments that were made."  “So you would approach it with an open mind notwithstanding your 1985 statement?" Specter asked.  “Absolutely, senator. That was a statement that I made at a prior period of time when I was performing a different role, and as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things that you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career and think about legal issues the way a judge thinks about legal issues." 

Alito was the author of the leaked draft opinion, which declares the ruling in Roe v. Wade was “egregiously wrong from the start."  ___

 CLARENCE THOMAS, 1991:  The late Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, recalled chairing a committee hearing and listening to women maimed by “back-alley abortionists." He said he was “terrified if we turn back the clock on legal abortion services."  In questioning Thomas the senator said: “I want to ask you once again, of appealing to your sense of compassion, whether or not you believe the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion?"  Thomas replied: “I guess as a kid we heard the hushed whispers about illegal abortions and individuals performing them in less than safe environments, but they were whispers. It would, of course, if a woman is subjected to the agony of an environment like that, on a personal level, certainly, I am very, very pained by that. I think any of us would be."  Thomas declined though to give his opinion “on the issue, the question that you asked me."  “I think it would undermine my ability to sit in an impartial way on an important case like that," he said.