President Joe Biden promised Black voters Wednesday that he would appoint progressives to the US Supreme Court if elected to a second term, suggesting he expects vacancies on the high court over the next four years.
“The next president, they’re going to be able to appoint a couple justices, and I’ll be damned — if in fact we’re able to change some of the justices when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we’ve always had, tell me that won’t change your life,” he said during a campaign rally in Philadelphia.
It was as explicit a warning as Biden could offer about the stakes of the upcoming election, and a clear reminder that some of the nine justices have entered their seventies.
Clarence Thomas is 75 and Samuel Alito is 74; both are conservative and appointed by Republican presidents. Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal who was nominated by President Barack Obama, turns 70 next month.
Biden’s going to need everyone’s help. Turn the Senate and the House super Blue. Even if you hate Biden because of Israeli support, vote for your Rep and Senator that can deal with this corruption. Add to the bench until the traitors Thomas and Alito become irrelevant. Revise the number of Senate and House seats.
Even if you hate Biden because of Israeli support,
Trump said that “he (Trump) fully support’s Israel’s Gaza genocide.”
Anything Biden can do, Trump can (and would) do worse.
Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you.
Biden: I can support Israel’s killing of people in Gaza Trump: I will deport anyone that supports Palestine
Having been around awhile, it’s so weird that people are trying to make the case that a republican presidency could be a good thing for… just about any country in the middle east. Not saying that any party is going to spend much time on it, but it’s just a weird stretch.
Because people are that fucking gullible.
It’s irrelevant what’s happened or is happening unless it comes from timtok/Facebook/lemmy/reddit post.
Not voting for Biden is exactly what they want to achieve and people who haven’t read past titles are their target.
Nobody thinks Trump will be good for the Middle East. They are just trying to pressure Biden to actually change his policy. The idea is he’ll change course if he sees it’s not popular and could threaten his election. I say publically it’ll make a difference because I don’t want Biden to support a genocide and it’s the only tool I have, but I doubt it will. I’m sure they’re all like me and live in a blue state, which means we’re useless for the electoral college. He needs to try to get purple states.
I hate that this sounds so dumb but we now live in a world where the truth sounds stupid
Again, a vote for a giant douche or a turd sandwich.
Even if you hate Biden because of Israeli support
i.e. don’t be a single-issue voter.
Nah, man. I’m totes voting for my boy Trump because he said I can have my gas stove and gas truck. So, double issue voter. Fully supporting my golden bro because he’s my christo brother.
Idc about his;
- blackmailing of Ukraine, and his impeachment from this,
- support and ties to rush-ah, and other dictatorships around the world,
- undermining democracy globally, to include threats of pulling out of our global defense alliances,
- violent rhetoric and attempted coup, and his impeachment for this,
- sex with a pornstar and hush up payment utilizing campaign funds and subsequent corruption and coverup,
- attempt to destroy the USPS in order to undermine mail in voting during a pandemic,
- terrible handling of the pandemic and undermining trust in science on the subject contributing significantly to large American death toll,
- Appointing under-skilled and extreme AND extremely partisan Supreme Court justices who; destroyed women’s right to medical privacy and their abortion rights, are constantly undermining voters rights across the country, are constantly undermining equal rights for LGBTQ citizens,
- for his raiding of government and tax payer coffers by; removing the oversight body for PPP loans and stating he would ‘personally oversee it himself’ which lead to significant corruption and theft, by giving the ultra wealthy further tax breaks at the expense of the middle and lower class, by utilizing his venues AND not distancing himself from his organization and funneling money for his Secret Service at his overpriced hotels,
- I’m done, I can’t give an all inclusive list of things I’m going to ignore for my Bro (twice impeached) Former President Trump.
You were a believable Trump supporter until your list, too many big words lol
I’m a single issue voter and my single issue is proportional representation - I’ll be voting for Biden but if a major party candidate did genuinely advocate for voting reform they’d probably have me.
Hijacking this comment thread to promote Ranked Choice Voting.
RCV, Approval, and STAR my beloved
STAR, score, or approval! Not sure why people are obsessed with ranked, they must love curing ballots and being prevented from tallying districts individually?
100% would rather have ranked over FPTP, just to be clear. FPTP is toxic garbage.
Not sure why people are obsessed with ranked, they must love curing ballots and being prevented from tallying districts individually?
No need to be hostile to them. RCV is pedalled very hard, so naturally people who’ve heard about alternative voting systems will know it first.
Because those still encourage strategic voting. With RCV, you can vote your conscious and be certain that it won’t backfire and help your enemies.
Is there good videos on STAR or score like there is ranked or approval? I first heard about alternative voting systems from that one stick figure YouTube guy. Not sure if he’s made any other election based videos I’ve missed or if other people have made equally good ones about other voting systems.
I don’t know if they’ll be as entertaining as a pro YouTuber but there is a webpage with some explainer videos https://www.starvoting.org/videos
And theres only one party that has outlawed RCV in certain areas. We aren’t getting RCV without 2 things:
-Primary moderates and elect progressive Democrats at every level we can -A Democratic supermajority in Congress
Not sure what you mean by outlaw, but there are definitely democratic politicians who have shot down RCV on their ballots.
Boo RCV - we should just go parliamentary and stop direct election of the executive branch!
Because that’s been going so great for the UK…
The UK has shitty FPTP like we have here but their government never deadlocks. The US government can fail in a very special way where the president can be reduced to only being able to veto legislation while trying not to be impeached and it’s fucking dumb.
We need a government that’s both representative and functional and there’s a reason why modern nations have looked at directly elected executives and parliamentary system and vastly preferred the latter.
Biden should be scared of losing his job or he has no incentive to do what the people want.
You have a list of senators and house reps that will keep Biden and potentially Trump in check?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Congressional_Progressive_Caucus
In terms of which progressive candidates are running to beat incumbents that varies from state to state.
Any progressive incumbents we should definitely not vote for?
Fetterman kinda sucks now lol. But I don’t know anything about if he’s up for reelection or if someone worse is running, so I shouldn’t comment 😅
Sure you do. Think back to your school classes. Senators are elected for 6-year terms. Fetterman is basically brand new so that means his election was the last cycle, or 2022. 2022 + 6 years equals 2028 reelection.
He should pull an FDR and try to get the court expanded to 12.
11 or 13. You don’t do even numbers on the SC so there aren’t voting ties.
13 makes the most sense. There are 13 circuits, why not 13 Supreme Court justices?
…and the district judges themselves elect/appoint their representatives to SCotUS. Get political appointees out of the top bench, I’ll take an unelected meritocracy over cronyism and patronage any day.
I…huh. Never thought of this tbh.
Yeah agreed. I never quite understood FDRs thinking on putting an even number of people in the court. We have so many 5-4 decisions now an even court would be chaos.
Can’t they recuse or abstain from voting though?
They can, but as we can see from Thomas and Alito, they don’t.
Yes. But that rarely happens (usually just because of health issues). There are very few decisions that have been made where all the members didn’t weigh in. When even votes have happened the lower court ruling will stand as is. Which is particularly bad when you have places like the 5th circuit trying their best to fascism.
12 with ties being decided by a season of survivor.
13 is a better number, it matches the number of Federal Appelate Courts.
If Democrats manage to take both houses of Congress and the Presidency, I would advocate for immediately passing a law to increase the size of the SC to 13, effective for the start of the SC’s 2026 term.
Then, Democrats and Republicans should go to work to enact a Constitutional Amendment for term limits on the SC. Republicans would finally have incentive to do it quickly, or else Biden would name 4 young Liberals to the SC who will be there 40+ years without term limits.
also 13 original colonies… 13 stripes on the flag.
some magahead: so that means 1.2…3…4…7 republicans… and 1…2…6 confederates?
Hey, some of us smart people can’t do that basic math either 😭
(In my case, calculus and ADHD combined powers to make me useless with actual numbers, real and imaginary, lol)Imaginary numbers aren’t Real - they can’t hurt you.
I think a better solution should tie SC seats to the number of federal district courts. That way, should the number grow in the future, SC seats will be added automatically
Yes, that is better, but would require a Constitutional Amendment to formalize, otherwise a future Congress can just change it. Which is why you start with expansion, then force the Republicans to the table to discuss the amendment under a time limit.
If I’m not mistaken, Biden could add seats if he wanted to, so could any president. I think no one wants to do it because then the other party would add more as well.
The size of the SC is set through legislation, so a law would need to pass Congress, and the President would need to sign it. So one party can’t do it unilaterally unless they control both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
I wish he would. The only thing stopping him, ironically, is his fear of appearing partisan (and angering “moderate” republicans, if they even exist anymore), despite the fact that that’s exactly what this would be attempting to remedy.
I’d love to be wrong, but he’ll never do it. He’s barely even willing to talk about the supreme court’s corruption and blatant bias. I think he’s allergic to that much institutional change.
He called Trump semi-fascist in 2022 and backed off since. Biden does not push the limits of any power he wields.
You’ll note there has been an endless amount of arguments about Biden’s limitations to his ability and power to effect change, but never that he is pushed up against those limits.
Biden was most popular when he was fighting for Green New Deal and BBB. But his inability to whip his party into voting for the platform the Democratic party ran on was disappointing and he has never recovered.
He also implied he would be a one-term president and turn the reins over to someone younger. I’m so fucking sick of old, white men!
I hate that his pledge to be a one-term president was the deciding factor for me in 2020. I was so frustrated with the Clyburn maneuver to neutralize Bernie’s momentum that I needed something that made me believe the goddamn reality of this 2024 ticket wouldn’t come to be.
He won’t. Biden would have done it already.
Well, since it is legal for a President to order assassinations… why not open SCOTUS up to some new blood?
It’s very likely the GOP will win control of the Senate, and if they do McConnell would sooner die than let Biden even consider nominating someone.
Still gonna vote for Biden though, because if Trump wins the Conservative justices will all retire at once and they’ll nominate 30-year-olds to fill in. I don’t want 60+ more years of a Conservative court majority!
McConnell has already said he would step down from Senate leadership, so some other guy would get the task of impeding everything Biden does.
However, things are looking better than they used to that Democrats will at least be able to hold the Senate to a 50/50 split, and possibly also pick off Ted Cruz in Texas. Democrats who are not fond of Biden don’t seem to be taking it out on their Senate candidates. There are several states where Biden is trailing, yet the incumbant Democratic Senator still has a good lead.
McConnell has already said
Let me stop you right there, because this man has already shown his word doesn’t mean anything. It shifts with the political winds.
Democrats have to win in a lot of red states this time around. I’d be over the moon if that happened, but maybe we should have a backup plan in case Democrats lose in Ohio, Montana and Texas.
Democrats already have 51 seats (counting the independants). WV is a lost cause, but if they keep the seats they currently hold (including Arizona), that’s how they get to the tie at 50.
You point out Ohio and Montana where holding that seat will be hard, but signs are pointing up.
Biden not causing many stiffies will have a negative impact on the number of those actually going to the polls though
This had better not be a “well, we waited to fill these until the election year so that we can use it to mobilize the base”.
One, because it’s terribly cynical and self serving.
Two, because it doesn’t work on progressives nearly as well as they think. It runs the risk of alienating voters because they don’t feel respected for 3.5 years out of 4.
I don’t think it is (though Dems seem to pull that often). Supreme Court Justices seem to have a very hard time letting go of the power, even on the more progressive side (Notorious R.B.G. being the most recent example). There’s basically no way to remove a supreme court justice, impeachment will pretty much never happen. I think it’s more recognizing that multiple who are 75 years old in a stressful job and being targeted by the public more and more is likely to lead to at least one of them leaving, be it death or retirement.
“Expecting vacancies” could be interpreted as an axe-related threat against some of the more conservative judges. I’m not 100% opposed to the idea.
Doubt any would retire willingly. It’s a sad state of affairs that judges will go until death before allowing the other side replace them.
Nah, triple the size and pack it full. It’s our only hope.
Playing devil’s advocate but couldn’t that backfire spectacularly? The
born again nazisRepublicans play the long game and we could see even larger scrotus stacked withnazisRepublicans.They’ll do that as soon as it suits them anyway.
Herod’s Law
“Just as soon as the court decides that the President is immune from prosecution, I expect there will be six vacancies soon after.” wink
Actually progressive or “biden is the most progressive president in recent US history” progressive? I’ll take either over the alternative, but I’d love it if it was more than former than the latter.
Progressives, conservatives. Whatever. Just give me someone with a moral compass and a spine.
So, progressives?
Honestly the best trick conservatives ever pulled was convincing people that everyone is as immoral and spineless as they are. “All politicians / judges / whatever are corrupt” is complete bullshit, but somehow people seem to have bought into it
