7mo ago

A President Harris might not get any Supreme Court picks – Biden proposes term limits to make sure all future presidents get two.

theconversation.com A President Harris might not get any Supreme Court picks – Biden proposes term limits to make sure all future presidents get two

A scholar of the Supreme Court and its relationship to the people of the United States says that President Joe Biden’s proposed term limits for justices can restore the court’s eroded legitimacy.

A President Harris might not get any Supreme Court picks – Biden proposes term limits to make sure all future presidents get two

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There isn't a plan.
A plan would list the steps necessary to enact Biden's wishlist, but so far I have not seen a plan for how to actually enact any of the changes he has proposed. It will require constitutional amendments, which is impossible thanks to the undemocratic electoral process enshrined by the Supreme Court. Without amendments literally any legislation can just be struck down by the Court.
Instead of using the unlimited power the Court just granted him, he's just wasting time on a wishlist that won't happen.
- A sitting president is opening discussing changing an equal branch of government. He's using the bully pulpit to introduce and normalize the idea to an entire nation. That itself is valuable, and where this has to start.
  
  This should have started four fucking years ago, but four years ago even talking about Court reform was too extreme.
  This is progress, but we're behind where we should be.
- We would need an amendment for term limits, but we don't actually need term limits. The size of the court is set by Congress, not the Constitution, and there is no requirement that it be a fixed number.
  So, we can just give every president two appointments, in their first and third year in each term. Life terms, per the constitution, but any who die or retire are not replaced.
  
  That's a plan! Sadly, this proposal does not include Court expansion. There is no plan.
- You claim he has unlimited power but also that this is so impossible he can't do a single thing to progress the idea.
  Seems like you're just taking extreme opinions to criticise a person you already dislike.
  
  You claim he has unlimited power but also that this is so impossible he can’t do a single thing to progress the idea.
  I said he has unlimited power and he's not fucking using it. There needs to be a plan for how his wishlist can be put into action, otherwise it's just daydreaming.
  
  Do you mean that the headline doesn't contain all the details?
  I get that it's nice to imagine the world is no more complex than the things we see but the president doesn't just come up with cool sounding things while he's up on his podium - Biden has been a hugely effective policy maker and actually got stuff to happen so I think it's silly to suggest he's not got a plan.
  
  I mean Biden's wishlist on whitehouse.gov which contained no details for how to make any of it happen. Go read it yourself. He's talking about pie-in-the-sky bullshit like constitutional amendments with no details for how he plans to make it happen, or how he plans to put ethics rules in place without the Court ruling it unconstitional.
  Don't talk down to me. No one has any idea how he's going to do any of this, or how Harris is going to do any of it. There. Is. No. Plan!

64 comments