The Supreme Court is out of control and must be reformed

The majority then announced, with an opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts, that it was overthrowing the student loan forgiveness program, granting a request from six Republican state attorneys general on behalf of a loan servicer, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, that did not want to be used as a plaintiff. Without MOHELA, the states did not have standing to bring the suit—they are not directly harmed.

Roberts and the majority weren’t going to be bothered by the fact that their plaintiff was an unwilling participant in this highly partisan scheme. "By law and function, MOHELA is an instrumentality of Missouri ... The [debt forgiveness] plan will cut MOHELA's revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students,” Roberts wrote. “This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself."

Never mind that in oral arguments the state admitted that MOHELA wasn’t aiding Missouri college students because it hadn’t paid into that fund in 15 years, and “said in its own financial documents that it doesn’t plan to make any payments in the future.”

LordR,

Even worse was the other case that was based on a gay person's marriage. Turns out he is/was not gay, already married, had a child and didn't know that his name was used for a case.

The US Supreme Court is judging made up cases now.

As a European I hope that everyone in the US will vote accordingly to at least try to bring back some semblance of rationality back.

Laxaria,

One of the challenges in overcoming the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is needing a sufficient leftist majority in both branches of Congress to pass legislation, and this majority needs to be large enough to overwhelm the more restrained members of that majority. If this ever actually happens, the revamp of the SCOTUS is an inevitability.

The grim reality is insofar as legislation goes, any law passed or executive action taken can be challenged legally and the SCOTUS seems very willing to grant cert in arbitrary and capricious manners to overturn the legislation (or past judicial decision). The only saving grace of this series of decisions lately is revoking the independent state legislature theory, but that doesn’t really stop state governments from committing electoral fraud :/

Rationality isn’t returning to the SCOTUS for a long time sadly.

Briguy24,

Please vote everyone in the US. Most important thing you may do without having any notion.

Anna,
Anna avatar

Agreed, if things don’t go exactly my way, I want it changed until they do. Our opinion or no opinion at all! Right guys?

Darnov,
Darnov avatar

Could also abolish SCOTUS. Maybe force it to not be a lifetime appointment and rather it be a rotating committee from lesser courts?

Machinist3359,

Circuit judges elected every 16 years w/o term limits by a popular vote would probably strike a nice balance. The role requires expertise, which is only really established by years in the field. Also want to avoid the election cycle being too influential on decisions. Yet, there needs to be a democratic mechanism.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think there’s any argument about it, but there is one key problem and that is, outside of impeachment, there is no provision in the Constitution to do it.

Alito is absolutely right on that point, which means the only way to do it is through an amendment and we are simply too divided to get either an amemdment or a full convention passed.

Arotrios,
Arotrios avatar

I have to disagree with you here - Alioto is lying. It's on the very first line where the Constitution starts describing the Supreme Court.

Article 3, Section 1 first line:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish

The court itself was established through an act of Congress, the Judiciary Act of 1789, and Congress has had the power to both set the number of judges and impeach them throughout the entire history of the United States. If Congress had the will to do so, they could repeal and replace the Judiciary Act and still be under their Constitutional mandate - and the Act has been amended and expanded on substantially by Congress since its inception.

Alioto should be disbarred for even suggesting such a facetious legal theory.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

I acknowledge that I have a choice to shut up and let you all talk. I'm choosing not to do that, because I disagree. I have realized over the last few years that either side of a debate shutting up and walking away is the beginning of the echo chamber, and buffoonery follows soon after. It doesn't matter which side it's on.

I absolutely support what the Supreme Court is doing, standing in opposition to other parts of the government, taking real action to preserve the status quo or to make changes according to their view of the Constitution. That's their job. If you don't like it, then yes, please, vote in your local elections for candidates doing the things you believe. Because eventually, either we're going to get back to bipartisanship, or we will see secession happen again. I expect to pick up my life within the next few years and move to another state in the US because I disagree with the policies of my local government, and that's fine; let the people who are happy stay and the disgruntled depart if they've tried to effect change and haven't seen it work. But over time, we'll either need to keep building walls or rebuild bridges.

It's up to all of us, not just here online but in the country as a whole, to choose - which will you help to build, a wall or a bridge? Will you understand the values and reasoning of those you currently oppose, understand the motivation for their actions; and try to find actions where you have commonality of motive? Or will you just plug your ears, stay in the echo chamber, declare your tribe good and the other evil, and prepare for a war?

I'd like to say I want to work with others, but I've been burned many times when I tried. I am angry, hurt, and probably suffering from trauma. I don't mind right now that others feel that pain. I am occasionally conscious that it is wrong to find happiness in the suffering of others; but I can't deny what I feel. I think that's a problem a lot of people have, across the country.

The Supreme Court is not at all out of control. It's reflecting the feelings and trauma of a massive number of Americans and American communities. The Court is judicially surfacing long-standing emotional wounds that have been drawn into focus. They're fully under control. They're doing the right job.

Seraph, (edited )
Seraph avatar

There's no way out of this without expanding the court right? There are no easy ways to get these lifetime appointments removed, are there?

Edit: actually I just read they are trying to impose supreme court term limits!

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

I was under the impression they could be impeached.

chinpokomon,

Sure, but only for an impeachment offence. Even if there was unanimous consent for everyonebut the majority Justices, we're talking 300000000 to 5, that disagreed with a decision, the decision still stands and isn't an impeachable offense. So a Justice would have to do something egregious. Then impeachment would have to have a majority consent of the House and 2/3rds consent of the Senate, and the Senate would then have to make a motion to remove that Justice. So it isn't realistic that this would happen, especially with the razor thin margins of control in both chambers. Party politics would block the removal.

HipHoboHarold,
HipHoboHarold avatar

The only other option is to bust out the guillotine. Waiting for them to die naturally is gonna take too long, they clearly will never retire if their own free will, and no one in charge seems to care enough to do anything about their crimes.

So either we expand or revolt.

ExecutiveStapler,
ExecutiveStapler avatar

Absolutely not true, another option besides just murdering them is to place term limits on the court. Link is a bill introduced by Ro Khanna that'd have the most senior judge replaced every 2 years. If there were enough dems in the House and Senate reforms would absolutely be possible.

keeb420,

term limits wont stop them enriching themselves as much as possible.

HipHoboHarold,
HipHoboHarold avatar

So while not as likely to happen, glad to see someone trying to do something about it

Anna,
Anna avatar

Are you calling for killing members of the Supreme Court?

HipHoboHarold,
HipHoboHarold avatar

Less "calling for", and more so realizing that a lot of regimes in the world only got taken care of through people rising up. Sometimes violence has been needed, and that can be shown throughout this countries history.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

So, yes, you are calling for a violent insurrection against a part of the government.

dankapotamus,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Kbin_space_program,

    That's how Trump got in in 2016. Rust belt states being tired of being constantly lied to by democrats went and got lied to worse by the GOP

    HipHoboHarold,
    HipHoboHarold avatar

    So rather than going for the party who has a chance of doing anything good, just throw fuel to the fire. Give them the entire government.

    RestrictedAccount,

    No. Rather than going for the party who has a chance of doing anything good, they are going to vote for a party that will do the exact opposite of something good.

    Spyder,

    @dankapotamus

    @Arotrios

    The time for that line of thinking is in the primaries. It's a lot of work, but learn what the candidates in the primary stand for and vote as liberal as you can. Voting for anyone other than the Democratic nominee (or in very, very few cases a well-established third party with a high likelihood of winning) might as well be no vote at all.

    The first-past-the-post system we have makes it nearly impossible for a third party to win and basically ensures that whatever party they are closest to also loses.

    HubertManne,
    HubertManne avatar

    I mean hes looking libertarian party which is not liberal so I doubt he wants that.

    Machinist3359,

    The Green party or DSA would be the "very liberal" protest vote fwiw, and I say go for it.

    Arotrios, (edited )
    Arotrios avatar

    @dankapotamus I disagree - while there's certainly deadlock on the federal level, your vote absolutely matters, especially when it comes to state and local politics. Take a look at the states that have democratic super-majorities. Best example of progress in action is in Minnesota right now.

    That being said, speaking to your larger point, I think that if ranked-choice voting were implemented, we'd have a much more effective democratic process that would allow protest votes that didn't directly harm your best interests. Sadly, given the state of American politics, if you make under $150k a year or are a member of any minority group, if you don't vote Democratic, you're voting against your own interests.

    ExecutiveStapler,
    ExecutiveStapler avatar

    Two things:

    1. The Dems don't take your vote for granted, they just can't accomplish anything substantial with such historically slim majorities in the legislature. Link has a chart that shows the majorities in the legislature over time, notice than the margins have been massive in the past, such as during the New Deal era, but they've been razor thin recently. You can't pass housing reform, health care reform, college reform, abortion reform, etc. with razor thin margins thanks to our dramatic polarization.

    2. The Dems are not a monolith. Due to our FPTP voting system, we have two coalitions pretending to be parties, with the Dems being a mixture of everything from barely represented democratic socialists to fiscally conservative moderates. Vote in your primary to choose who in that spectrum you want, and in the general realize you can only choose between the party that gives tax cuts to the wealthy and inspires discord in our nation and the party that actually tries. Voting for a third party is just useless, look at link if you're not convinced.

    mrnotoriousman,

    I’m incredibly liberal but to be honest,

    Literally every time I see this it's followed by insert right-wing view/talking point

    NotTheOnlyGamer,
    NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

    Because no one is all-left or all-right, or all-Liberal or all-Conservative. It's not any form of doublethink to, say, support the right of a business to choose who they do business with - while also believing that we should be closing tax loopholes on businesses and corporations so that they pay a fairer share of the US tax bill. That's just one example, but others exist. No one I've ever met that was sane fully supports every point of the party line they usually side with. You will also see cases where people say, "I'm conservative but to be honest, liberal/left-wing talking point". It's how sane people work.

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