If we get the presidency back what are the chances of replacing one or two Supreme Court Justices?

[Quixote1818]

What are the ages of the judges now? Who is perhaps the next to retire or kick the bucket?

Also, if a Democratic President gets to pick another justice, they need to pick someone YOUNG and VERY HEALTHY!

[MNDemNY]

1. We could hire Putin as a consultant.

[IChing]

9. LOL good one ..............

[Deep13]

2. Stevens-really old.

Usually votes with the liberals, so that would not be a pick-up for our side. Scalia is 71, not that old for SCOTUS. Of course, Alito, Roberts and Thomas are even younger. Anyone else would not be a pickup for our side.

[madinmaryland]

7. Isn't Scalia a bit insane?

That might be the only pickup that I could see.

[MNDemNY]

12. Insanity won't get him off the bench.

[Donnachaidh]

3. wow -- stereotype much?

YOUNG and healthy?

Like that judge who sued the cleaners for millions over his pants? :sarcasm:

I'd MUCH prefer COMPETENT, LIBERAL and HEALTHY myself. :shrug:

[pnorman]

5. I can't remember his name, but he had been rejected for SCOTUS.

Ironically, he was an outspoken and FIERCE opponent of such "tort abuse"!!

pnorman

[AllegroRondo]

6. Bork

in fact, his name is synonymous with getting 'bounced' from consideration because of skeletons in your closet. Called "getting borked".

[pnorman]

15. Thanks! I just Googled it.

*
*
*
Leading Conservative Activist Seeks Punitive Damages

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing:
*
*
*

pnorman

[pnorman]

19. This "pants" story is no doubt what caused the confusion.

Dry cleaner wins missing pants case

WASHINGTON - A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y.Chung.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chungs, claiming they lost a pair of trousers from a blue and maroon suit, then tried to give him a pair a pair of charcoal gray pants that he said were not his. He arrived at the amount by adding up years of alleged law violations and almost $2 million in common law fraud claims.
*
*
*

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070625/ap_on_fe_st/67_million_pants

Absolutely NO "gotcha!" intended here. The guy in question was a judge, but not on the Supreme Court. I've done worse conflating of news stories in my time.

pnorman

[Quixote1818]

17. Absolutely young and healthy

Bush just put in to very young ass holes who have tipped the court and they will be there for a long, long, long time because they are so young! We need to put in someone liberal to moderate who will be there for a long, long, long time! If we don't we could get stuck with another Alito type replacing the one we put in.

[Deep13]

20. Presumeably a Dem. appointment would be competent and liberalish.

Have a young one increases the likelihood that said justice would be on the bench a long time. Frankly, I'm all for that.

[KansDem]

4. Can't the Dem Pres just do a signing statement declaring he/she can dismiss any and all judges?

I mean, how was the DOJ able to secure the resignations of all those US attorneys? Just do the same with the Supremes.

Yeah, I know, "the Constitution says..." How about the Dem Pres simply declare the Constitution as a "goddamn piece of quaint paper" and be done with it? Saturate the media with "The Supremes serve at the Pleasure of the President" Do it often enough and the populace will begin to believe it. Why can't the Dem Pres take advantage of a stupid and ignorant America, too?

I suggest at least of the 5 Supremes be given the "bum's rush." Do it fast enough and no one will notice.

[catmandu57]

21. We're better than that......I hope

That was a damn dirty trick that should be put in the deepest landfill available.

[ThomWV]

8. Here you go:

John Roberts, January 27, 1955 (53)

John Stevens, April 20, 1920 (87)

Antonin Scalia, March 11, 1936 (71)

Anthony Kennedy July 23, 1936 (70~71)

David Souter, September 17, 1939 (68)

Clarence Thomas, June 25, 1948 (59)

Ruth Ginsburg, March 15, 1955 (53)

Steven Breyer, August 15, 1956 (51)

Samuel Alito, April 1, 1950 (57)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. I say we up the SCOTUS to 11 members come a democratic victory in '09.

[IChing]

13. Great idea.......it was done before

[DKRC]

22. When? I've never heard of this nt

[IChing]

25. The United States Constitution does not specify the size

of the Supreme Court; instead, Congress has the power to fix the number of Justices. Originally, the total number of Justices was set at six by the Judiciary Act of 1789. As the country grew geographically, the number of Justices steadily increased to correspond with the growing number of judicial circuits. The court was expanded to seven members in 1807, nine in 1837 and ten in 1863.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

[DKRC]

26. Thanks! Googled it, but that didn't come up for me

[Pyrzqxgl]

33. Roosevelt tried and failed to add justices in the 30's to save New Deal programs like the NRA.

[IChing]

34. OK let us just give up and not try.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

35. ...

:rofl:

[blondeatlast]

18. Word!

:thumbsup:

[magellan]

32. Yeah!

I like this idea. I'm not sure the starched Dem shirts in Congress would even consider it, but I'd be all for pushing it at them if they manage to win more of a majority.

[Bucky]

11. Ruth Bader Ginsberg is SO not 53 years old.

That age is wrong for Breyer, too. Check your dates again.

[Quixote1818]

14. Thanks

At least Antonin Scalia is getting up there! He probably won't retire or die for another ten or 15 years though.

[Alexander]

24. Breyer and Ginsburg are much older than that.

Breyer was born in 1938, if I remember correctly, making him almost 70.

I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933.

[never_get_over_it]

29. There is NO WAY Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 52 years old

or Steven Breyer is 51. Wikepedia says Ginsburg born in March 1933 which makes her 74 and Breyer August 1938 which makes him almost 69. The three youngest are Roberts 52, Alito 57 and Thomas 59 all on their side and all have YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS to serve....

[Bucky]

16. Roberts, 52; Stevens, 87; Scalia, 71; Kennedy, 70; Souter,,67; Thomas,59; Ginsberg, 64; Breyer, 68

Alito.... ageless.

[elehhhhna]

23. No need to replace. We can ADD some and dilute their crappy votes.

[onenote]

27. court packing? not going to happen

If FDR couldn't get a court packing bill enacted, it has less than zero chance of happening now. FDR lost big time even though the repubs only had 16 out of 96 Senate seats in 1937.

[rasputin1952]

28. Well...Thomas is too stupid to remember to breathe, so he may

actually die soon...:D

[mitchum]

31. That's why Fat Tony has to pin a reminder onto Good Ol' Clarence's robe

[mitchum]

30. Only if some patriotic Americans...uh...nevermind