Democratic Senators "Warn" SCOTUS

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-15-2019, 09:32 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I guess I don't know what "court packing" means then.

Clearly not. 

Quote:What concerns you about someone saying the court is not "doing well" and suggesting the need to become less political? Sounds like you just don't like the messenger.

Although I fear this may be in vain I will explain further.The statement was not that the SCOTUS is not "doing well".  The statement was that the SCOTUS is not "doing well and (we) wonder if it will heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics'".  Since you are confused I will explain what a threat is.  A threat is saying if you don't do "X" then "Y" will happen.  In this instance the signatory Senators informed the court that they "hope" that the SCOTUS does "X" so "Y" doesn't happen.  This is absolutely no different than an organized crime member going into a store and attempting to sell an neighborhood "insurance" policy by stating, "this is a nice place, it would be a shame if something happened to it".  If you don't see the comparison then please just state as such and I will cease further attempts to explain this as I don't think I can put this in simpler terms.  I do hope that my point has been made clear though.

[NATI BENGALS]

(08-15-2019, 10:03 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Clearly not. 


Although I fear this may be in vain I will explain further.The statement was not that the SCOTUS is not "doing well".  The statement was that the SCOTUS is not "doing well and (we) wonder if it will heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics'".  Since you are confused I will explain what a threat is.  A threat is saying if you don't do "X" then "Y" will happen.  In this instance the signatory Senators informed the court that they "hope" that the SCOTUS does "X" so "Y" doesn't happen.  This is absolutely no different than an organized crime member going into a store and attempting to sell an neighborhood "insurance" policy by stating, "this is a nice place, it would be a shame if something happened to it".  If you don't see the comparison then please just state as such and I will cease further attempts to explain this as I don't think I can put this in simpler terms.  I do hope that my point has been made clear though.

Yea so lets just say we can agree to disagree about this. Pretty funny this little comment gets you all worked up. But one side denying the other the ability to fill a SCOTUS vacancy and then proceeding to ram through nominees recommended for political purposes doesn't concern you.

[NATI BENGALS]

PS

Checks and balances.

When one side gets out of line. Another is supposed to be able to do something about it.

Or did I dream that up?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-16-2019, 12:26 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Yea so lets just say we can agree to disagree about this. Pretty funny this little comment gets you all worked up.

Not worked up at all, I'm not sure where you're getting that.  Projection, perhaps?

Quote:But one side denying the other the ability to fill a SCOTUS vacancy and then proceeding to ram through nominees recommended for political purposes doesn't concern you.

My position on the Garland situation is well documented.  Not sure what it has to do with this thread other than whataboutism.

[NATI BENGALS]

(08-16-2019, 01:23 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Not worked up at all, I'm not sure where you're getting that.  Projection, perhaps?


My position on the Garland situation is well documented.  Not sure what it has to do with this thread other that whataboutism.

How does bringing up the court packing that is actually occurring right in front of your face across the entire judicial branch not have anything to do with the thread about a comment that scares you someone is going to pack the courts?

It seems pretty relevant to the topic at hand.

[BakertheBeast]

Wonder if these Trumplicans who were so abhorred with what Blumenthal said were as abhorred at a Potus who lied about bone spurs or a washed up rock musician Trumplican who wiped shit all over himself to get OUT of going to Vietnam in the first place?
At least Blumenthal served in the Marines and later apologized for his claim. The two Trumplican turds continue to lie about it. What a joke.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-16-2019, 01:34 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: How does bringing up the court packing that is actually occurring right in front of your face across the entire judicial branch not have anything to do with the thread about a comment that scares you someone is going to pack the courts?

It seems pretty relevant to the topic at hand.

Please look up what it means.

[NATI BENGALS]

(08-16-2019, 08:55 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Please look up what it means.

I have taken the liberty to expand the textbook definition. If the lower courts are being filled at a rediculous rate with queationable nominees mainly for political purposes after hindering the previous POTUS ability to fill vacancies. I don't think its wrong to say that is packing the court. Doesnt any case have to go through a federal judge, a quarter of which have now been nominated by a conman thanks to recommendations from a political group, before it can even get to the SCOTUS?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-16-2019, 01:54 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I have taken the liberty to expand the textbook definition.

If you're going to change a commonly held definition you're probably going to have to inform people you are doing so or be met with confusion.  Personally, I prefer using words and terms as they are actually defined, not what I choose them to be defined as, that being the core tenant of language and all.

Quote:If the lower courts are being filled at a rediculous rate with queationable nominees mainly for political purposes after hindering the previous POTUS ability to fill vacancies. I don't think its wrong to say that is packing the court.

Well, it is wrong unless we choose to use your personal definition, used only by you.

Quote:Doesnt any case have to go through a federal judge, a quarter of which have now been nominated by a conman thanks to recommendations from a political group, before it can even get to the SCOTUS?

Any case?  No.  Many cases go through the court process without ever entering a Federal courtroom.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

A little late to the party, but Think Progress, a very left leaning organization agrees with my premise.  They state the Dems have "declared war" on the SCOTUS.  The difference between the two of us is that I think that's a bad thing.


https://thinkprogress.org/five-democratic-senators-just-declared-all-out-war-on-the-supreme-court-7601fed719e6/

[Dill]

(08-27-2019, 02:22 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: A little late to the party, but Think Progress, a very left leaning organization agrees with my premise.  They state the Dems have "declared war" on the SCOTUS.  The difference between the two of us is that I think that's a bad thing.

https://thinkprogress.org/five-democratic-senators-just-declared-all-out-war-on-the-supreme-court-7601fed719e6/

Lot of WHATTABOUTISM in that article. 

People should just be angry about Dem threats to the integrity and legitimacy of the appointment process and stop bringing up the past.
.............................................................................................................................................................................
Simply put, there’s a reason why Senate Republicans held a seat on the Supreme Court open for more than a year until a Republican president could fill it. Partisan control matters a great deal. It’s the difference between a constitutional ban on gerrymandering and the decision the Republican majority handed down last June, which held that partisan gerrymandering cannot be questioned by federal judges. It’s the difference between a robust Voting Rights Act and skeletal voting-rights protections picked clean by the Supreme Court.

And, as Whitehouse correctly notes, it’s the difference between a nation that can keep deadly weapons out of the hands of murderers, and a nation where guns are largely unregulated.

The Whitehouse brief provoked predictable outrage from conservative outlets. The National Review’s David French calls it “the most malicious Supreme Court brief I’ve ever seen.”

“The brief is so outside legal norms,” French claims, “that, had I drafted it as a member of the Supreme Court bar, I’d be concerned about facing legal sanction for recklessly impugning the integrity of the Court.”

Perhaps. But you know what was also outside of legal norms? A sitting judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit angrily confronting senators who credibly accused him of trying to rape Christine Blasey Ford — and then threatening revenge against those Senate Democrats. The Whitehouse brief is best read as several prominent Democrats’ response to “what goes around comes around.”

The decision to lock Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland out of the high court, and the decisions to muscle Judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh onto that court, are the kind of tactics that exposes the molten core of partisan politics at the heart of the Supreme Court’s high-minded rhetoric.

Neither Gorsuch nor Kavanuagh, moreover, possesses even the second-hand democratic legitimacy that normally attaches to presidential appointees. Both men were nominated by a president who lost the popular vote, and were confirmed by a bloc of senators who represent less than half of the country. . . .

In other words, Republicans may come to find that by seizing control of the judiciary through constitutional hardball, they did so much damage to their prize that it is no longer worth having. The Whitehouse brief is an early warning sign that Democratic elected officials are, at the very least, ambivalent about whether they should obey courts that are increasingly seen as illegitimate. If those courts push too hard, that ambivalence could harden into something that will do permanent damage to judicial power.
.....................................................................................................................................................................................

LOL "Wrong whoever does it?"

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(08-28-2019, 06:17 PM)Dill Wrote: Lot of WHATTABOUTISM in that article. 

Don't blame me, blame the far left site that published it.  I bet if you'd know it was far left leaning you'd have come to a different conclusion about the article. 

[Dill]

(09-02-2019, 12:14 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Don't blame me, blame the far left site that published it.  I bet if you'd know it was far left leaning you'd have come to a different conclusion about the article. 

No emoticons for "s-i-g-h-h-h."  

You knew I was "far-left leaning" and still missed the irony. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

SCOTUS denies the suggestion of mootness and keeps the case on calendar for  oral arguments on 12/02/19 as previously scheduled.  They will argue the supposed mootness at that time as well.  Looks good for the mootness argument to go nowehere, as it should.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m648.pdf

Bottom of page ten is the relevant section.

[fredtoast]

(08-15-2019, 09:49 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Court packing, and the the threat thereof, is a bad move. Carte blanche. No exceptions. They aren't wrong that it would appear politically motivated for the court to continue to hear the case after it has been rendered moot. It would be the action of an activist judiciary. That doesn't excuse the threat, just pointing out that the reason for not being happy with SCOTUS is pretty well founded.

Just my two cents.

Nailed it.

Court packing bad, but SC hearing a case that has been rendered moot proves it is nothing but  apolitical move.

The SC has always been political, but now it is is starting to bend its own rules to become more political.

Court packing may not be the answer, but something needs to be done.

Any suggestions?

[fredtoast]

(08-15-2019, 01:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: All of this assumes not only that the case is now moot and that continuing to hear it would be "steeping out of bounds" as you put it.  IMO, and the plaintiffs, neither of these things are true.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-280/110978/20190801121009552_18-280%20NYSRPA%20suggestion%20of%20mootness%20opposition.pdf


For decades, the City of New York imposed numerous restrictions on law-abiding residents that effectively prohibited them from transporting their licensed handguns anywhere beyond seven in-city ranges. Five years ago, petitioners (three city
residents and an association representing handgun owners statewide) challenged that regime, insisting that the Second Amendment gives them a right to transport their licensed handguns to places where they can be lawfully possessed, like second homes, out-of-city ranges, and shooting competitions.

For five years, the City actively and successfully defended its regime, ultimately procuring a Second Circuit decision that eliminated meaningful protection for Second Amendment rights. Then this Court granted certiorari, and the City abruptly shifted gears, undertaking a series of extraordinary maneuvers designed to frustrate this Court’s review and obviate the City’s need even to explain itself in a merits brief.

The City’s efforts culminated in a revised regulation designed to loosen the City’s restrictions to the minimum degree necessary to render this litigation moot and a City-procured state law that actually grants the City unique authority to prevent nonresidents from transporting licensed handguns through the city.

Neither of those changes renders this controversy moot, and each vindicates this Court’s well-grounded skepticism of voluntary cessation of unlawful conduct generally and of “postcertiorari maneuvers designed to insulate a decision from review by this Court” in particular.

The City’s begrudging revisions to its restrictive transport ban reflect the City’s unwavering view that the ability to transport a licensed handgun is a matter of government-conferred privilege, rather than a constitutional right. As a consequence, the revised regulations demand continuous and uninterrupted transport (forbidding a stop at a gas station or coffee shop en route), require written permission before a handgun can be taken to a gunsmith, and preclude transport to a summer rental house.

If the City had suggested the same revisions as a proposed injunction after a loss on the merits, petitioners would have objected to them as inconsistent with their just reaffirmed Second Amendment rights. The (in)adequacy of such miserly accommodations presents no less a live controversy when the City unilaterally imposes them as a supposed mooting event.

Equally problematic, the City’s revised rules, unlike a judicial declaration that the longstanding rules are and always have been unconstitutional, do nothing to prevent the City or another jurisdiction from using past non-compliance as a basis for denying future licenses.

The City plainly has fallen far short of making it “impossible for a court to grant ‘any effectual relief whatever’” to petitioners should they prevail before this Court.

The state legislation that the City procured also fails to eliminate a live controversy between the parties. The state law leaves many disputed questions—from the propriety of coffee stops to the scope of places where handgun use is “lawfully authorized”—to local officials.

It thus does nothing to eliminate the ongoing controversy over issues such as the adequacy of the City’s rule demanding continuous and uninterrupted transport, or the possibility of localities attributing continuing consequences to past violations.

Even more troubling, the state law contains a massive carve-out that allows the City— and the City alone—to prohibit non-residents from transporting a licensed handguninto or across the city.

Thus, the City’s claim that it “no longer has any stake in whether the Constitution requires localities to allow people to transport licensed handguns to second homes or firing ranges outside of municipal borders,” SM.1, is demonstrably wrong.

Of course, even if (contrary to fact) the new laws were so unequivocally accommodating of petitioners’ constitutional claims so as to eliminate any immediate controversy, the unilateral and voluntary nature of the changes, along with their undisguised purpose to frustrate this Court’s review, would justify injunctive relief to foreclose the possibility that the City could return to its ways. Especially given the City’s ongoing regulation of constitutionally protected conduct through its licensing regime, the possibility of “effectual” injunctive relief is obvious.

Indeed, the carve-out in the state law confirms that the City maintains an undiminished interest in prohibiting the transport of lawful handguns and has yielded only when and to the extent necessary to attempt to foreclose this Court’s plenary review.

In short, everything about this case confirms not only that a live controversy remains, but the wisdom of this Court’s admonition that post-grant maneuvers designed to defeat the Court’s exercise of discretionary review “must be viewed with a critical eye.”


The most critical parts, IMO, are bolded and underlined.  While you may disagree, it is clearly not without precedent to continue to hear the matter and it's certainly not "steeping out of bounds" as you put it.  

I am not fully informed of the facts in this case, but actually I would be unprecedented for the SC to rule on a law that no longer exists.  The document you quoted used a lot of vague language about the Court being "skeptical" and certain actions being "viewed with a critical eye" but it does not list one example of the SC ruling on a law that no longer exists.  They do not issue "advisory opinions".

Maybe all it will take is a new case filed protesting the new law.  Or maybe there is enough of the old law to challenge.  I really don't know enough about the specific facts to know.  But changing a law because a court ruled it was improper is not a bad thing.  In fact it is exactly what is supposed to happen.

[Belsnickel]

(10-07-2019, 07:55 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: SCOTUS denies the suggestion of mootness and keeps the case on calendar for  oral arguments on 12/02/19 as previously scheduled.  They will argue the supposed mootness at that time as well.  Looks good for the mootness argument to go nowehere, as it should.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m648.pdf

Bottom of page ten is the relevant section.

It should be noted that there is still a potential for the case to be rendered moot in oral arguments. In case anyone was too lazy to go and read the document.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(10-08-2019, 12:59 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It should be noted that there is still a potential for the case to be rendered moot in oral arguments. In case anyone was too lazy to go and read the document.

Yes, I thought I made that clear, apologies if not.  However, given the court's decision to hear the mootness argument at the same time as oral arguments for the case I'd say they have an uphill climb ahead of them on the mootness argument.

I don't really understand the opposition to the court hearing the case, especially as presented in the plaintiff's argument I posted above.  To get a case heard by SCOTUS involves years of court hearing and appeals.  For a defendant to wait until the SCOTUS agrees to hear the case and then change the offending law is such a blatant gaming of the system that I honestly question the legal acumen and morals of anyone endorsing it.  What would prevent the same law from being reenacted a few months or a year later, starting the whole process over?  Also, SCOTUS decisions are important for the precedent they set that will apply to laws and instances not immediately covered or apparent by the existing case.  Clearly this is a constitutional decision that needs to be addressed.  I, for one, am looking forward to exactly that.

[Belsnickel]

(10-08-2019, 03:16 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Yes, I thought I made that clear, apologies if not.  However, given the court's decision to hear the mootness argument at the same time as oral arguments for the case I'd say they have an uphill climb ahead of them on the mootness argument.

You did, but I was distracted by funny stuff on YouTube and it didn't register.

(10-08-2019, 03:16 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't really understand the opposition to the court hearing the case, especially as presented in the plaintiff's argument I posted above.  To get a case heard by SCOTUS involves years of court hearing and appeals.  For a defendant to wait until the SCOTUS agrees to hear the case and then change the offending law is such a blatant gaming of the system that I honestly question the legal acumen and morals of anyone endorsing it.  What would prevent the same law from being reenacted a few months or a year later, starting the whole process over?  Also, SCOTUS decisions are important for the precedent they set that will apply to laws and instances not immediately covered or apparent by the existing case.  Clearly this is a constitutional decision that needs to be addressed.  I, for one, am looking forward to exactly that.

My issue with it is that hearing a moot case is the court expanding its own authority. The rules regarding what the court can take up keep its power limited. SCOTUS can't just reach down and grab a case it wants to hear; it needs to go through all of the channels of appeal before it is brought to them as the final step. If a decision is handed out on a moot case then you are setting a judicial precedent for future courts that expands their ability to hear cases that are moot simply because the majority of the court wants to take it on.

I don't at all disagree that the questions in this case are important and need to be reviewed, but the SCOTUS hearing a moot case is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(10-08-2019, 03:24 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: You did, but I was distracted by funny stuff on YouTube and it didn't register.


My issue with it is that hearing a moot case is the court expanding its own authority. The rules regarding what the court can take up keep its power limited. SCOTUS can't just reach down and grab a case it wants to hear; it needs to go through all of the channels of appeal before it is brought to them as the final step. If a decision is handed out on a moot case then you are setting a judicial precedent for future courts that expands their ability to hear cases that are moot simply because the majority of the court wants to take it on.

I don't at all disagree that the questions in this case are important and need to be reviewed, but the SCOTUS hearing a moot case is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The alternative is allowing a clearly unscrupulous party to game the system.  As you just pointed out, the path for a case to get to SCOTUS is long and difficult.  If the defendant chose to wait until the SCOTUS decides to hear a case to finally alter the law that prompted it then the blame rests solely on them.  Additionally, as described above, there is still legitimate grounds for grievance on the part of the plaintiff.  NYC played a disingenuous and highly partisan game with their citizen's Constitutional rights and now they're being held to account.  Allowing them to game the system as they intended would be a far more damaging precedent in my opinion.