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Amy Coney Barrett: Who is Trump's Supreme Court pick?:
Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the US Supreme Court comes as little surprise.
[...] Donald Trump - who as sitting president gets to select nominees - reportedly once said he was "saving her" for this moment: when elderly Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and a vacancy on the nine-member court arose.
It took the president just over a week to fast-track the 48-year-old conservative intellectual into the wings. This is his chance to tip the court make-up even further to the right ahead of the presidential election, when he could lose power.
Barrett's record on gun rights and immigration cases imply she would be as reliable a vote on the right of the court, as Ginsburg was on the left, according to Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University.
"Ginsburg maintained one of the most consistent liberal voting records in the history of the court. Barrett has the same consistency and commitment," he adds. "She is not a work-in-progress like some nominees. She is the ultimate 'deliverable' for conservative votes."
And her vote, alongside a conservative majority, could make the difference for decades ahead, especially on divisive issues such as abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act (the Obama-era health insurance provider).
Barrett's legal opinions and remarks on abortion and gay marriage have made her popular with the religious right, but earned vehement opposition from liberals.
But as a devout Catholic, she has repeatedly insisted her faith does not compromise her work.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is facing considerable controversy about his plans to move the nomination forward quickly:
"President Trump could not have made a better decision," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said in a statement. "Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an exceptionally impressive jurist and an exceedingly well-qualified nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States."
He added: "First, Judge Barrett built a reputation as a brilliant scholar at the forefront of the legal academy. Then she answered the call to public service. For three years on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, she has demonstrated exactly the independence, impartiality, and fidelity to our laws and Constitution that Americans need and deserve on their highest Court... As I have stated, this nomination will receive a vote on the Senate floor in the weeks ahead, following the work of the Judiciary Committee supervised by Chairman Graham."
This is in sharp contrast to McConnell's actions following US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's passing away on February 13, 2016. McConnell waited less than 2 hours to make the first of 5 statements to urging delay in nominating a new Supreme Court justice:
The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president
That statement was made with 342 days (over 11 months) remaining in Obama's term as President. There are 124 days (just over 4 months) remaining before the end of Trump's term.
President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) followed McConnell's lead and never allowed the confirmation process to begin. Thus, no nomination was ever brought to the Senate floor and thereby leaving the vacancy open.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 27 2020, @10:58PM (16 children)
Well, how can you execute separation of powers better?
Interpretation of law is inherently political. You can't ignore the political element.
Maybe those things can't be done properly?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 28 2020, @12:06AM (7 children)
Always the defeatist. With nothing but the simple desire, anything can be done properly.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 28 2020, @03:18AM (6 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 28 2020, @04:52AM (2 children)
Simply not possible. There is nothing but us to prevent it. With sufficient demand we can and will have a very strong separation of power. We have the power to ignore the parties and form our own, just takes desire and initiative.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 28 2020, @10:10AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 28 2020, @03:39PM
The only thing that is not possible is impossibility. When you say "not possible", what you really mean is you don't know. And many things that people don't want to do are declared "not possible" for the obvious reason. All the trivial things you declare as "not possible" can be traced to lack of personal will or outright antagonism.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @07:48AM (2 children)
Earlier poster here. There are plenty of countries that just do fine without all those politics.
I've read to more parts in the discussion that I started here and there seem to be a few things going on:
1) Seperation of power. Having the president appointing a person for life should not be a problem if the judge has to follow the writings of the law to the letter.
2) Interpertation of the law. Task for the house and senate to make sure there is no room for "interpretation" or "maybe the person who wrote the law intended this". If there is discussion about this, stick to the letter in how it is written down. If house or senate start to complain, let them make a new law that invalidates the flawed one.
The Surpreme Court could even have a duty to check those new laws that they are executable and in line with existing laws.
3) Allow laws to be replaced by a new law, even the constitution. My country (in Europe) is older than the USA, but the constitution is from early 1900. Even now sometimes we want to make changes to it, which requires new elections for the house and a 2/3 voting majority.
However, I'm aware that these things would be basically undoable to implement in the USA (at least in its current state of distrust).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 28 2020, @10:09AM
1) You can't make the letter of the law sufficiently unambiguous.
2) The House and Senate are already so tasked, but they've ignored that for a couple of centuries.
3) Already done. Nobody has come up with a sufficient reason, much less the needed majorities to replace the Constitution.
I simply don't buy that your country does this any better. Glancing through Wikipedia, it sounds like Austria might be the country in question with their constitution established in 1920. They have an insanely easy process for modifying their constitution, it just takes a 2/3 supermajority of the National Council (which sounds like the "house" in question), which is way too easy. And their constitution broke down prior to their annexation by Nazi Germany. That's a pretty serious failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @03:50PM
We already have this. It's called judicial review and it's been around from the beginning of the Republic. See Marbury v. Madison [wikipedia.org] for further info.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @12:55AM (1 child)
Have you guys tried AK-47?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @03:54PM
So, the only way you have of solving your problems is with a gun? Is there really no other way with you guys?
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @12:56AM (4 children)
Here the highest-court judges are appointed, not elected, after extensive consultation among the legal profession and other bodies. Although the party in power makes the appointment, it's the legal profession, covering all political viewpoints, that selects who they consider the most suitable candidate. And that's not just in theory, that's how it actually works in practice. We have a pretty independent judiciary that doesn't take any crap from the government, the near-universal response to a new appointment is typically "yep, that was a good choice" no matter where on the political spectrum you are.
So in the US perhaps the ABA and other bodies could select the candidate?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 28 2020, @02:22AM
lol Harriet Myers
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 28 2020, @03:27AM (2 children)
Much like how it's done with the US Supreme Court, I see. Also, be aware that there's a large conflict of interest between those legal professional bodies and the interpretation of law. There are many ways to generate business from the rulings of a court.
Hell no. Only if we get to elect the membership of the ABA would it even start to make sense.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday September 28 2020, @03:33AM (1 child)
Unless I'm missing something, it's more or less the opposite of how it's done in the US. Here, it's the consensus of the legal community and other groups that makes the choice. In the US it's the President.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 28 2020, @09:49AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Monday September 28 2020, @02:28AM
Canada does it pretty well by only appointing Judges based on qualifications though there is a tendency to try to represent all regions. There's almost never any controversy over appointments though the last Conservative PM tried to appoint someone who wasn't qualified, by the qualifications listed in the Constitution, and ended up in a battle with the Chief Justice.