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posted by on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the proven-solutions dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) decision to prevent a president of the opposite party from nominating anyone to the Supreme Court, it's doubtful that any justice will ever be confirmed again when the presidency is controlled by a different party than the Senate. That means America will lurch back and forth between extended periods with a understaffed Supreme Court, followed by massive shifts in the law as one party fills a backlog of vacancies.

[...] Several states have shown that there is a better way [than what, it appears, will happen at the federal level from now on].

The Missouri plan

As America struggled through the Great Depression, Missouri's courts were a den of partisanship and corruption. As former Chief Justice of Missouri Michael Wolff explains, judges were "selected in elections in which nominees were chosen by political parties under a patronage system." In much of the state, judges were selected by a single machine party leader, "Boss" Tom Pendergast. Throughout Missouri, "judges were plagued by outside political influences, and dockets were congested due to the time the judges spent making political appearances and campaigning."

Frustrated with their politicized judiciary, the people of Missouri passed a ballot initiative replacing the state's corrupt process with a non-partisan coalition--at least for the state's top judges.

When a vacancy arises on the state's supreme court, a seven person commission consisting of "three lawyers elected by the lawyers of The Missouri Bar . . . three citizens selected by the governor, and the chief justice" submits three candidates to fill that vacancy to the state's governor. The governor then has 60 days to choose among those three names. If the governor fails to meet this deadline, the commission selects one of the three.

Finally, after a year of service, the newly appointed judge must survive a retention election, where a majority of the electorate can cast them out of office--though this only happens rarely.

This method of judicial selection, as well as variants upon it, was adopted by many states since its inception in Missouri.


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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:09PM (8 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:09PM (#493426) Homepage Journal

    I did read it. It was just insane, so I ignored it. Saying the states are less likely than the federal government to pull power back to the states from the federal government is patently absurd.

    Secondly, there is precedent that predates both the constitution and Congress.

    Thirdly, if two thirds of the states call for an article 5 convention, woe betide a federal government that tries to stand in the way. There are no outcomes of doing so that work out well for them.

    I'm not saying it's easy but it isn't complicated either.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:40PM (7 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:40PM (#493484) Journal

    Saying the states are less likely than the federal government to pull power back to the states from the federal government is patently absurd.

    We had a notable attempt at that before. It was called the Civil War. I think we all know how that turned out.

    Ultimately, after everything else, the question comes down to -- who has the bigger army?

    Thirdly, if two thirds of the states call for an article 5 convention, woe betide a federal government that tries to stand in the way.

    Well, first you seem to completely ignore the fact that our state governments are generally about as divided in partisan warfare as the federal government, so you seem to be overlooking the fact that it's probably an equivalently difficult partisan threshold to get over on the state level as on the federal level to summon a convention.

    Second, you completely ignored my point about Congress certifying the convention to begin with. By many arguments, we ALREADY have had enough petitions from states to call a convention, yet we have none. Why? Because Congress effectively gets to make the rules here -- are states allowed to withdraw their support? (If so, as seems to be the current interpretation, getting the state threshold is a lot higher, because a change in party or whatever in a particular state could lead to flip-flopping making it difficult to get a simultaneous occurrence of enough active petitions.) How similar do the requests for conventions have to be? Do they all have to deal with the same issue? Etc.

    Believe me, I'd be THRILLED if we could actually get an Article V convention going. Do I think it has ANY chance of happening in my lifetime, barring some complete insurrection or breakdown of civil order or something? No.

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:01PM (2 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:01PM (#493494) Journal

      By the way, I misread the first statement you quoted, and now I get what you were trying to say. I just don't think this is a federal power issue, though. We're talking about changing the mechanics of federal court appointments. That's not removing federal power. And yes, I do think it's less likely that states will get to dictate that process in an Article V convention than for Congress to accomplish reform internally (though I think both are unlikely).

      In any case, I think this whole discussion is beginning to get far afield from my original point -- which is that we'd actually need a lower threshold of bipartisanship to just prevent future "confirmation wars" than any of these proposed Constitutional amendment scenarios. Why will we get to the Constitutional amendment when we could just "behave better" with much less bipartisan agreement required?

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:36PM (#493642) Homepage Journal

        Getting politicians to behave better is not an option. You have a choice between two pieces of shit. Every single time.

        Personally, I think a constitutional amendment would just be re-amended by congress to put things back the way they were; or worse. The only thing that's going to save this nation is watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:48AM (#493791)

          No, you just believed the lie that you only had two choices. There are third party candidates who are at least much less shitty than the two main party candidates for most positions. Everyone says they dislike partisan politics, but the only way to change things is to stop voting for these parties!

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday April 13 2017, @07:28PM (3 children)

      by jmorris (4844) on Thursday April 13 2017, @07:28PM (#493579)

      We had a notable attempt at that before. It was called the Civil War. I think we all know how that turned out.

      Politically it worked exactly as it should, the dissenting States pulled out and were successful in forming a new government.

      Ultimately, after everything else, the question comes down to -- who has the bigger army?

      Yup, When Lincoln lost the political argument he appealed to the sword and won. And set the precedent that defying Washington could and would be punished with atrocities against civilian populations. Meaning any future attempt either needs overwhelming odds, i.e. not so much secession but an expulsion of the Blue Rump, or the states leaving need enough WMD in weaponized form to instantly pose a credible MAD deterrent. Note that the scenario under discussion, a supermajority of States voting for an Article 5 convention and being denied by Congress would be an "expel the rump" situation where the swamp in DC would be simply discarded.

      Btw, the nomenclature of "Civil War" is itself Union propaganda intended to disguise their crimes. A "civil war" is when two or more factions contend for control of a nation state. A "war of independence" is when one portion of a political entity declares independence from the rest. But saying the Union smashed the South's claim for independence in exactly the same was as King George failed to do to His former colonies doesn't sound nearly as noble. Once you notice the language trick you begin seeing it everywhere; control the language used to discuss a thing and you are usually 90% of the way to winning the argument.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:36PM (#493643)

        It's too bad that the question of states' rights had to get caught up in a war over owning slaves.

        I suppose some would argue that states' rights only comes up when states want to be assholes and the feds won't let them. But if the UK can leave the EU, why can't a state leave the U.S.? (other than "because we'll beat your ass if you try")

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday April 14 2017, @04:47AM

          by dry (223) on Friday April 14 2017, @04:47AM (#493820) Journal

          The other question is how large a majority should decide on secession? 50%+1? Personally I think it should take some sort of super majority so to not end up like the UK where the election might have gone the other way on a different day.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:22PM (#493697)

        You write this as if we should be having our slaves attend to the details as to why Mr. Lincoln had chosen to follow his social justice war.