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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFive Democratic senators just declared all-out war on the Supreme Court
What goes around, comes around.
Ian Millhiser
Aug 15, 2019, 10:48 am
A tone of ritualized obsequiousness pervades most briefs filed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Judges are powerful and at the Supreme Court level, unaccountable. They wield enormous, arbitrary power not just over litigants but over the lawyers who appear in their courtrooms. So when most lawyers speak to a court, they speak with a painful awareness of the arbitrary control separating the bar from the bench.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), however, is not most lawyers.
Whitehouse is one of five senators (the others are Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)) who filed a brief earlier this week in a Second Amendment case the Supreme Courts Republican majority could use to dismantle what remains of Americas gun regulations. Whitehouse is also the lead (and only) counsel on the brief.
The brief itself is less a legal document than a declaration of war. Though parts of it argue that the high court lacks jurisdiction over this case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, the thrust of the brief is that the Supreme Court is dominated by political hacks selected by the Federalist Society, and promoted by the National Rifle Association and that if those hacks dont watch out, the American people are going to rebel against them.
Seriously.
https://thinkprogress.org/five-democratic-senators-just-declared-all-out-war-on-the-supreme-court-7601fed719e6/
And David French is pissed off that Whitehouse and 4 other attorneys with standing are calling out this activists court ....................well, French, Whitehouse ( the other 4 attorneys) are saying your Federalist Society is basically saying your right wing court is dangerous to a republic and democracy.......................this going to be interesting to see how your anti constitutional court handles this brief...........................Roberts can't punt on this David French, and the box just got smaller .......................
chowder66
(9,127 posts)The judiciary, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. Its power flows entirely from the widespread sense that its decisions are legitimate. Courts may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
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.
wasupaloopa
(4,516 posts)the SCOTUS.
Only if we have power do we have teeth in what we say.
We need to run the other branches of the government. If we fail to do that we lose democracy!
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)When the GOP Congress is purchased by rightwing billionaires,
And the GOP president is in thrall to rightwing billionaires,
And the GOP SCOTUS was picked by and owes their jobs to rightwing billionaires
We dont have checks and balances anymore. There is only one group controlling all three branches: rightwing billionaires Republican oligarchs.
lastlib
(23,429 posts)Republikkkan mega-donors write the checks, and the GOPee legislators collect the balances.......
ancianita
(36,262 posts)sandensea
(21,800 posts)Oh, well. If wishes were horses.
BigmanPigman
(51,717 posts)the Kavanaugh hearings/testimony. He reminded me of Atticus Finch for some reason.
kairos12
(12,917 posts)can only be 9 members.
Add additional office space and call it the Merrick Garland Wing.
onetexan
(13,092 posts)Wednesdays
(17,537 posts)Do you really want to go down that road?
ancianita
(36,262 posts)elocs
(22,673 posts)and it's paying off. There were Republicans who did not like Trump but still voted for him because Supreme Court nominations and the judiciary were important to them. If Trump wins another term it will be the final nail in the coffin for the judiciary from a Democratic point of view.
For Democrats, a long term party plan might be the next election, if that.
CrispyQ
(36,615 posts)2000 should have been a huge wake up call to the dems, that the GOP had thrown the rule book in the trash, but it feels like our side is just starting to wake up to exactly what the republican party has become.
not_the_one
(2,227 posts)of electing more of the same.
I WILL, however, vote for whomever our nominee is, enthusiastically.
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