Another election, another debate over the right of a US president to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the final months of their term.
President Donald Trump has selected Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Supreme Court, and Senate Republicans are committing to support him, despite taking the opposite stance when Barack Obama attempted the same thing in 2016.
It’s already become a flashpoint — US$1.8 million has been spent on political ads about the Supreme Court in the 10 days since Ginsburg’s death, according to Advertising Analytics.
The question then becomes: what, if anything, can the Democrats do in response?
The short answer is bollocks all, really. Republicans hold the majority in the Senate, and the chance to install another conservative Supreme Court justice — confirming conservative domination of the court for decades to come — has swept away any concerns about quaint notions like consistency.
The best bet will be disruption and delay — slowing legislative business and calling committee business to a halt as often as possible, among many other uses of process. Indeed, a memo is circulating on capital hill urging just that. Elsewhere, senators are arguing they won’t meet with Barrett and will potentially boycott her confirmation hearings.
But in the likely event this fails, things get more interesting if the Democrats take back the Senate in November.
In that case, they could potentially bring in reforms to prevent the Republicans’ ceaseless gerrymandering (and thus control of various judicial appointments) and strengthen the Voting Rights Act to end voter suppression among groups more likely to vote Democrat.
Finally there’s the possibility of expanding the Supreme Court from nine to 11 justices, and making appointments to mitigate the current conservative majority. Of course, that relies on a Joe Biden presidency and a Democratic majority in Congress and the Senate — which adds a layer of political risk to Democratic senators acting as gleeful wreckers for the next few months.
How corrupt can a nation be when all their judges are elected not just the Supreme Court.
And law officers, from dog catcher to sheriff to DA.
Add to the mess no central electoral authority, often devolving to the county level.
Quote: “and strengthen the Voting Rights Act to end voter suppression among groups more likely to vote Democrat.”
I wonder if anyone ever thought to “strengthen the Voting Rights Act to end voter suppression” in a democracy. I am growing to dislike very much how everything now needs to be looked at through a partisan lens, instead of what is in the best interests of the relevant country / community, et al, as a whole.
A valid point, but there does not seem to be any voter suppression for white supremacists who vote Republican.
Whenever I waver in my support for compulsory voting, I just look to the good old US of A. That gets me back on track.
And the UK as well – both consider 60-70% turnout to be acceptable.
Yet without compulsion the northern european countries are high 80%.
Might be something to do with a more representative system, proportional representation & MME.
Of course strengthening the voting rights act will benefit the Democrats – the original voting rights act was introduced to stop southern states preventing minorities from voting, which they do every chance they get.
To understand the current state of the US which has become what the political scientist Sheldon Wolin termed a corporate dictatorship of inverted totalitarianism you really only need to look at two sources of information:
The first of these provides an insight to the development of the US constitutional democracy by the all white, mainly slave-holding elite male, “founding fathers” One of the main issues and one which required considerable innovation and guile was to prevent the majority form outvoting the rich land-owning minority. The principle drafter of the constitution was James Madison.
One of his utterances relating to the terms of the US Senate says it all:
“An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labour under all the hardships of life, & secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this Country, but symptoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarters to give notice of the future danger.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044
In fact the US constitution has had a considerable number of mechanisms to disenfranchise the poor, landless, woman and slaves in the past and still has a number of these mechanisms in place. The electoral colleges which were supposed to prevent the election of incompetents like G W Bush and Trump are but one of these.
The US constitution was about principally about three things:
The second of these documents, the Powell memorandum was about recovering the advantages that the US upper class had before the crash of 1939 and the imposition of the “New Deal” by Roosevelt.
This confidential document is not the only catalyst for the imposition of Neo – Liberal economics there were other agencies like Thatcher, Friedman, Reagan and that fool Greenspan. But the document lays out the whole strategy which has been thoroughly implemented over the last 60 years since it was written.
If you read the Powell memorandum you will be able to tick off virtually every strategy articulated against the history of what actually happened. From union busting to right wing think tanks. Privatisation to dismantling corporate regulations like Glass Steagall and the EPA.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
Economists and pundits like the New York time Thomas Friedman have pressed the idea continuously that Neo – Liberal economics with its sanctification of free markets is like gravity and quantum mechanics, a non-negotiable natural order of things. After reading the Powell memorandum it will become clear that the whole edifice is built on the basis of the human construct of the class system. It wasn’t something that organically and naturally evolved out of “modern capitalism” it was a great con put about by the wealthy to restore their rightful pace in the social hierachy. A self serving religion that any normal person who had even a rudimentary understanding of human nature dismissed immediately, but which the elites on both sides of politics lovingly embraced.
What has all this to do with the appointment of Judges to the the US Supreme Court, well that good O’l boy Lewis was a corporate Lawyer and guess where he got appointed to for services rendered. Yep the Supreme Court of the USA. And who appointed him? Richard Millhous Nixon. So Dicky Nixon may have lost a battle, but he won the war.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Thank you for that excellent dissertation – the salient points made clearly and with citations.
Although familiar with the Federalist Papers, I was not aware of the Powell document.
I’ve no doubt it will warrant later careful perusal.
Nicely done.
The blunders one makes with such comparisons, Robert, is to impress the current ethos onto a value system of quite some time ago.
The Papers, 80+, written by Hamilton, Madison and a few others, were published in newspapers for the edification of the immigrants. The blacks, you might recall, were imported.
The Powell document was politically concealed by the Keynesian-ismof all vessels rising with the tide and more or less in proportion (compare productivity and wages) to the early 70s. The change occurred POST OPEC in 1973.
I agree with you as to the contemporary effects but you might also include the de-skilling, robotic automation that is occurring with a world population out of control.
Of all of your articles of late, Charle, I find myself most in agreement with this article. As you may know, from various posts that I have made, I have been working, visiting and watching the USA for some decades.
The composition of the Supreme Court very much reflects the legal mood of the electorate which is something that you article omits! The place was LOT more liberal and tolerant in the 70s; under Nixon and Ford Republican). Examples abound.
I will add more as the comments increase.
“which adds a layer of political risk to Democratic senators acting as gleeful wreckers for the next few months.“
It seems that it is ok for one party to be gleeful wreckers while the other party is somehow bound by conventions. It’s hardly as though the Republican Party could be more wreckers based on recent history. They are quite happy to blow up the joint if they don’t get their way.