From Fox News:
Senate Dems deliver stunning warning to Supreme Court: ‘Heal’ or face restructuring
Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental restructuring if justices do not take steps to “heal” the court in the near future.
The ominous and unusual warning was delivered as part of a brief filed Monday in a case related to a New York City gun law. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., referenced rulings by the court’s conservative majority in claiming it is suffering from some sort of affliction which must be remedied.
The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York.
The Democrats are desperate to keep the Supreme Court from expanding gun rights in any way, shape, or form.
“The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it,” the brief said. “Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.'”
This is the most self-oblivious statement I have ever read. Senate Democrats say that the court is too political, so if the court refuses to bow to Democrat political pressure, the Democrats will punish the court.
To any reasonable person, that is twisting the court’s arm to be more… what’s the word… political.
This has always been a tactic for the Democrats. When the Left marches in lockstep, they are never accused of putting party over country. When the Right holds fast to principle instead of doing what the Left wants, they are told they are putting party over country. So it is with the Supreme Court. When SCOTUS legislates from the bench for the Left, that is good law. When SCOTUS affirms a right the Right likes (e.g. Heller and McDonald), that is the court engaging in bad partisan politics.
The Democratic senators’ brief was filed in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. City of New York, which dealt with legal limitations on where gun owners could transport their licensed, locked, and unloaded firearms. They are urging the court to stay out of the case brought by the NRA-backed group, claiming that because the city recently changed the law to ease restrictions, the push to the Supreme Court is part of an “industrial-strength influence campaign” to get the conservative majority to rule in favor of gun owners.
So regardless of how unconstitutional NYC’s law may be, if the Supreme Court decides in favor of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, which is supported by the NRA, Senate Democrats are going to enact revenge against the Court.
This is a more aggressive step taken by the Left than ever before. If they can bully the Supreme Court on this case, they can do it on any other case. The Democrats only need file a brief that says “this is how we want you to decide and if you don’t we’ll pack the court or move you to lower courts and replace you with Justices we like.”
If this is allowed to happen, the Supreme Court will no longer be a check and balance on the Legislature. It will be a panel of Judges to rubber-stamp the Constitutionality of anything the Democrats want.
If the Left manages to pull this off, the ballot box may no longer be the right box to protect us anymore.
Nice SCOTUS you got there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it.
“Nice SCOTUS you got there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it”
…says Fredo…..
I wonder if Roberts will roll over again.
If he doesn’t roll again, expect a portion of Epstein’s files to get released, because I’m sure the fed.gov doesn’t have them all, or the only copies. If not Epstein, someone else will leak something nasty, and quite possibly true.
I’ve privately believed for years, ever since his disastrous obamacare ruling, that someone has some truly bad dirt on that man. He’s engaged in some outlandish twisting of law, logic, and language, out of character with the jurist that was appointed, in order to roll and vote opposite everything we were led to believe he believe, and has done so only after donning the robe. Either he shammed his entire career, or someone has the goods on him.
Maybe so. But given the two centuries of track record, I think Roberts is merely a run of the mill judge with no respect for law or Constitution. That tag applies to about 99% percent of them, conservatively estimating. (As always: read St. George Tucker for much more detail.)
Roberts grew up not far from where I live. I once had the chance to chat with someone that knew him when he was a young man. From what I gathered, Roberts was useless, even then.
CommieKKKRats being CommieKKKRats.
SMDH
They’re trying to Venezuelize our Supreme Court.
Several prominent liberals have come out against stacking/packing the Supreme Court. If I remember correctly RBG is one of them, Biden another. Maybe it is because they remember the lesson of Harry Reid pulling the nuclear option, and realize that it may not always be a Democrat nominating justices, or maybe they are just not willing to jump onto the populist bandwagon with this issue.
Either way, the solution to unpopular decisions and politicization of the SCOTUS is not to add justices in the hope your side gains a permanent majority. It is to put term limits on the justices. No more lifetime appointments.
Each of them gets all of 12 years on the bench. Rotate them out three at a time on or near the mid term elections. This way, any President of whatever political persuasion has the opportunity to appoint three justices per term. If the President serves two terms, they appoint six justices total, and they might get a bit of a liberal or conservative majority for all of four years.
A 12 year term is long enough for a President to have some long term influence, but short enough that the opposition party has a hope they can sway the Bench back in their direction in the near future. Confirmations will become a lot less contentious as well.
Too bad it will never happen.
Like all term limits that takes a Constitutional amendment. I like your suggestion. But if we’re talking term limits, putting those on Congress is a far more pressing issue.
The WSJ covered this story in their lead editorial today.
The headline says “Senators file an enemy of the court brief” (a word play on the legal term “amicus curiae” meaning “friend of the court”).
What was neat is that they used Reltney’s wording:
“Nice Surpreme Court you have there. Shame if it had to be ‘restructured’.”
(That line was removed from the on-line text; a note says that they took it out because “Two sentences in an earlier version of this editorial were similar to those in a column by David French in National Review. We believe this was inadvertent but have removed the sentences and apologize for the similarity.”
I saw that, it was behind the pay wall for me.
I read the National Review and WSJ article (different computer that I hadn’t exceeded my 10 articles on), so now my question is, whose was better?
My sorry amateur ass or the Pros?
[…] This is a followup to my post Senate Democrats threaten the Supreme Court over the Second Amendment and inch us closer to CW2.0. […]