Without control of the White House, there is of course only so much Democrats can do with their newfound power. And in the context of the myriad horrors of the first half of President Donald Trump’s second term, talking about what the party “should” do next is roughly analogous to deciding which out-of-control forest fire to fight first: There is not enough water, there are lots of worthy candidates, and all of them are getting worse.
One thing must be true, though: Whatever issues Democratic lawmakers choose to focus on—and, as the 2028 ideas primary gets underway, whatever ambitious ideas Democratic presidential hopefuls choose to support—the party must also have a plan for taking on the Supreme Court, which remains an existential threat to anything Democrats might hope to accomplish. Even if the party is fortunate enough to win a trifecta—the House, the Senate, and the White House—in 2028, things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All and a new Voting Rights Act do not stand a chance before this six-justice conservative supermajority. Regrettably, what I wrote in 2020 is just as true today: If Congress passes any one of these proposals into law, the only real question is which justice ends up writing the opinion that kills it.
Just impose a 16 year term limit.
That idea is just plain stupid. *refusesToElaborateAndFliesAway*
Instead of seven shitty judges they want 13 and they can’t reasonably justify it. LOL
Expand the House, too! I’d make it as representative as what they had when they designed the system: 3,929,214 people represented in the first Census by 65 Representatives by the end of the first Congress, or around 60,000 constituents per Representative. Taking that as a nice round number for our putative replacement for the Reapportionment Act, we’d end up with 5,524 Representatives. It’d effectively end the utility of gerrymandering, hugely dilute the extra votes in the electoral college given to states with small population, and could even make possible the rise of more than two parties acting in two coalitions, instead.
I would rather they talk about holding the sitting judges accountable for ethics violations and adding term limits. Expansion seems like a good way to end up where we are now, but with more seats to worry about in 10 or 15 years.
The Supreme Court takes bribes and is biased. That is a complete failure of the intent of what the supreme court should be.
no, it still is a separate office that is exchanged less often than congress or the senate
Here’s another thing that needs to be addressed:
In 1789 each house representative represented roughly 5000 voters.
Each senator represented roughly 14000 voters.
In 2026 each house representative represents roughly 600,000 voters.
Each senator represents roughly 2.5 million voters.
I’m not sure that system was meant for scale.
The Senate was made that way deliberately. It’s not based on population.
The point is that when this system was created, the number of people you had “power over” ostensibly, were far far fewer than today. And scale matters a lot.
If you have a hundred people, and one raving lunatic cult psycho, that’s easily contained.
If you have three hundred million people, you suddenly have an army of three hundred thousand raving lunatic cult psychos with serious political sway coming your way.
Ok but, to be fair, they planned for population and territory explanation. I think manifest destiny was after the revolutionary war but it’s kinda silly to think that they thought the country wouldn’t like, grow.
I’m not saying that it is functional, but thinking that just because things were different when the Constitution was made doesn’t mean change wasn’t taken into account. Hell some of them thought we should rewrite the entire thing every few years.
Ok but, to be fair, they planned for population and territory explanation.
Expansion you mean, and no, I don’t think they did, not at scale. They could never have imagined the absolute dominance over the world that the USA would one day see, not even close.
Hell some of them thought we should rewrite the entire thing every few years.
Exactly. Amendments. All countries do them when necessary, but you don’t. Anymore, at least.
Betcha 10 bucks they don’t
There’s a whole big ole bucket list of things to take care of right now, remember we still have an infected pus sack of obstruction, corruption and mayhem in the WH.
I think right now it’s about holding people accountable, stop the war and restore healthcare, and by god those alone won’t be easy.
The Supreme Court has been proven that it can be corrupted. It needs to be rebuilt so that can’t happen again.
“I think we should have term limits for the supreme court.”
“But no term limits means they aren’t beholden to political interests and can stay unbiased!”
Tell Thomas’ RV that he is unbiased.
God I wish this would have happened
Voters turning MISSISSIPPI BLUE is NOT a Sign that we should do Something EXTREME like This! INSTEAD Voters PROBABLY want to See us HELP Trump with His Agenda!
-Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer!
Better yet, this.
Have Congress pen a law that says “the supreme court can’t constitutionally overturn this.” When they challenge it, they’d have to cite where in the constitution they are provided such power. And that doesn’t exist. Judicial supremacy is removed.
supreme court battle pass
The SC would just rule it unconstitutional and end of story. Why are we talking about this? Even FDR couldn’t do it.
What we do have a mechanism to do is impeach Justices and plenty of cause to do so.
Impeachment requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate.
And any court-packing bill will have to override a veto, (2/3rds house & senate) plus overcome a SC challenge.
The Constitution says in plain terms that Congress sets the number of justices. It’s been expanded before. There’s really no standing for any argument saying it can’t.
This would be a transparent attempt to usurp the power of the Supreme Court and make it subservient, not co-equal, to the other two branches.
If we want to fight a good-faith SC challenge, we’d have to do something like every president gets to appointments of 16 years or something that just makes things more equitable and less random (retirements, deaths). The more the intent is to alter the court for political reasons, the more likely it is to fail…
So I think impeachments, as long as a shot as they are currently, is a better tactic, and maybe investigations would expose the illegitimacy of the SC and build support for an update in a way abstract arguments about the number of justices do not.
This would be a transparent attempt to usurp the power of the Supreme Court and make it subservient, not co-equal, to the other two branches.
The Court should be subservient, not co-equal to the other branches. Because the court is not elected and not democratically accountable. The power of judicial review was not even stated in the constitution, so it was never intended to be “co-equal.” Likewise, the idea of the executive holding so much power that it could be considered “co-equal” to the entire legislative branch, one person holding that much power, was never intended.
Having said that, I do agree with you that, from a pragmatic perspective, we can’t make sweeping changes like that without a clear mandate from the people, which the Democratic party does not currently have and can’t expect to have even if they win in 2028.
No it wouldn’t be?
If the supreme Court wants to start declaring parts of the Constitution to be unconstitutional, they’re just poking holes in their own authority.
The Supreme Court goes outside the strict text of the Consitution all the time… Saying, “I don’t like how the Supreme Court is voting, so I’m going to appoint as many Justices as I want until I get my way” is a pretty clear violation of powers.
But y’all can believe in unicorns and chocolate trees or whatever the fuck makes you feel better. I’m out.
The powers are explicitly stated. Changing the number of seats is quite literally within their power, not a violation.
The SC has yet to directly contradict a straightforward statement in the constitution. Going outside the text is not the same as violating the text themselves.
Eh, not really. 9 isn’t some magic number enshrined in the constitution. It’s just what we’re used to. And having more justices wouldn’t make it subservient, they would still have the same powers, no more no less.
Honestly that 2/3 majority thing, implemented all over the US in various ways, was only ever meant to prevent progressive change for the good of everyone. And it apparently works very well.
In 2024 Florida had weed legalisation and enshrining the right to abortion on the ballot, both had 55% support, both failed to pass.
Well, no, they’re not able to strike down laws because they want to. Presuming competent aides draft a Constitutionally-adherent law they can’t say shit.
Besides, this should be in concert with impeaching Clarence, Alito, and Boof.
They literally did this with parts of the constitution already
They struck down parts of the Constitution?
Basically any part that limits the President. Engaged in rebellion, not a hurdle. Take care to execute laws, too much of a hassle. Power of the purse, might as well be his.
Mmm I’m not sure that’s the case, but they absolutely have been corrupt holes for trump.
Firstly, trump would have to admit he’s starting a coup, then he’d have to prove his coup is part of his Presidential duties, which. If you’re buying that I got a bunch of bridges in Arizona to sell.
My favorite is the little carve out they gave themselves for banning free speech around the SC building.
Start saying it now, let the GOP make a show of stopping it, and make it clear that if Dems win the trifecta in 2028 this country will have a very beautifying makeover.
Clarence Thomas will be 80 in 2028. If the President elected that year gets two terms he’ll be 88 by the end of it. Alito is only two years younger and has already discussed retirement.
The Supreme Court is going to look very different soon even if its kept to 9 members.
Pointless until we have a Dem in the White House
Start with impeaching the corrupt fucks instead
Also good
Everything everywhere all at once, flood their news feed and hit them so hard they can’t keep up. Our turn, we will give these people a better life god damn it, we are gonna democratic it up and respect and protect their rights and interests. I can’t wait to force these people to have country that meets their needs.
That only works for Republicans because it takes virtually no effort to flail around breaking shit but an immense amount of effort to build something worthwhile.
Also, dems still have little power to enact change without the presidency. Not that they have no power, but don’t expect a bunch of new laws or reversed executive orders within the next two years. The biggest win is Republicans’ ability to continue breaking shit is now greatly diminished.
At least things are so broken now that little improvements seem huge. For example, look at Mamdani filling potholes in NYC.
Talk about impeaching judges who took bribes now. Expand the court next.
The latter would make the former infinitely more possible.
Impeachment of Supreme Court justices doesn’t involve the courts at all. It’s done solely through Congress.
SCOTUS settles numerous disputes and could, like they did in the early 2000s, change the outcome of contested elections. If they do so to those that may have the plan to impeach the court, there is little anyone can do to stop them. Therefore expanding the court first takes priority, to prevent the court from retaliation.
Actually, that would have to be the opposite order. The court can’t be expanded until there isn’t a republican in the Whitehouse. So priority must be given to impeachment so that the current bad actors don’t try to overturn the next election to save themselves.
You want to expand the Supreme Court before the next election?
Tell me, who nominates Supreme Court justices for the Senate to vote on?
You, specifically, are why I support reeducation camps for all Americans. Reading comprehension has gone downhill so rapidly since AI’s invention.
And you, specifically, are why the Iron Front wanted to shoot Marxists alongside Fascists and Monarchists.
Go reread the thread. The only one lacking reading comprehension here is you .
Has there ever been a single Marxist to ever exist who wasn’t a condescending prick with absolutely zero intention to “educate” anyone? If I’m going by Lemmy, the answer is clearly “fuuuuuuuuck no”. The only concern you have is feeling superior, full stop. And I have seen almost zero evidence that any of you vary about that
Based on your extensive comment history it’s not really a wonder that you feel that way. I would bet you also feel that way about the average person on the street or anyone else you intentionally misread.
They can’t expand the court before the SC can fuck with the midterm elections.
But it does require a 2/3 majority.
anything the shitstain doesn’t like also requires a two-thirds majority (of both chambers) to override his veto.
the bar is slightly lower for impeachment, as laying the charges only requires simple majority in the house.
In the Senate.
