At Atlantic Bob Bauer has some suggestions for reducing the acrimony on Supreme Court appointments and I’m sad to report that he’s fantasizing. His suggestions boil down to just two:
- Impose term limits on Supreme Court justices
- Require a supermajority for the SCOTUS to strike down acts of Congress
The reason those are fantasies is that the Supreme Court won’t impose them on itself (it could) and each would require a constitutional amendment.
There’s one, easy way to reduce the temperature on Supreme Court appointments: lower the stakes. By “easy” I mean easy to say not easy to accomplish. The Congress could lower the stakes on Supreme Court appointments without a constitutional amendment by limiting the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, something it has never done but one of its enumerated powers. Nearly all of the highly contentious cases brought to the Court are on appeal. The power of the federal courts more generally to hear cases on appeal from the state courts is subject to Congressional limitation.
But Congress will never do that. Congress likes the ability to work their will outside the electoral process and the Supreme Court affords them that possibility.
That’s easy compared to what some are suggesting – reforming the Senate. Nevermind that it would either take the agreement of all 50 states or a civil war to accomplish.
I agree with you about lowering the stakes, but those in power don’t want that.
I’d also reform the parties, especially the primary process in each state – but again, those in power are too invested in the present system.
Nothing will change until conditions worsen enough to:
– force a reformation at the grassroots or
– allow more reasonable factions to become dominant in each party.
I think we’re in for a long, rough ride.
Andy:
Speaking of what “some are proposing” I can only conclude from the demands to abolish ICE (née INS) that there are either a widespread desire not to enforce our laws, a lack of understanding of civil service law, or both.
Abolishing ICE won’t get rid of the employees. That would be a violation of civil service laws and regulations. They’ll merely assume roles in whatever replaces ICE. If the idea is to abolish ICE and not replace it, the simplest conclusion is that they don’t want to enforce our laws.
Polls, including polls generally friendly to immigration (NYT/Harris, for example), suggest that would be a losing issue for Democrats. There’s an old wisecrack about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and the Democrats may be doing it.