Democrat leaders are acting like a bunch of imbeciles they are going to blow this election with their putting "stacking the Supreme Court" on the table! By threatening this consequence they are giving the Republican Party a gigantic size hypodermic needle of adrenaline for the Republican Party to inject into their base and people open to voting for them it will make a measurable difference in this election. Don't Democrat leaders monitor right wing radio, these hosts en masse are cautioning their listeners that the stakes of this election are that the Democrats if they gain power are going to pack the Supreme Court with extreme liberal Justices who will do things like take away your Second Amendment right to possess a gun, your right to private health insurance, they will dramatically diminish state and individual rights culminating in Democrat liberal elitist running your life. What has unfolded is right wing radio is scaring the hell out of people about the effect of the Democrats packing the Court, Democrat leadership is incredibly foolish for giving the Republican Party this aid for this upcoming November election!
I get why the Democrat leadership has come out with such a big threat, Republicans putting Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court is unfair and will turn that Court into a right-wing activist Supreme Court. Nevertheless, wisdom calls for restraint so you don't make the situation worse. Democrats need to remember that Donald Trump with his ignoring the long standing in America customs and legal standards of restraint on Presidential power changed the rules, after Trump a President can now largely do whatever he wants through Executive Order. So let's say on this ACA case currently in the Supreme Court, Judge Barrett is confirmed as a Justice and she gives the Court the additional vote to say the individual mandate is unconstitutional and even goes as far as saying therefore the ACA's whole entire scheme of the individual insurance market with communal pricing based on large enrollee pools is unconstitutional so that as a consequence people with pre-existing conditions would again be subject to insurance underwriting based on their health status in trying to get health insurance which would put the cost of that insurance out of reach for most such Americans. Well what does a President Biden do in this post-Trump world he issues an Executive Order that Medicare has to open up enrollment to Americans with pre-existing conditions unless they are high income American and he also says publicly to American seniors you are not going to pay one dollar out of your Medicare fund for this coverage expansion because I promise I will not sign one budget bill until Congress covers Medicare's monetary loss from this expansion. The bottom line is that Democrats have other options to fight this injustice and its effects other than stacking the Court!
One thing Democrats might want to consider is slightly changing the terms of the Supreme Court by this I mean the following. When one really thinks about it America has a somewhat depraved system for our Supreme Court. The current terms are that a Justice once confirmed to that bench receives a life-time appointment which necessitates the question what has that wrought America. Well in Ruth Bader Ginsburg case it wrought a hundred and seventy-five million Americans continually hoping she would not die during the Trump presidency so he would have the opportunity to choose her replacement. This RBG scenario is not the first of its kind it is often the case where the American people have to pin their hopes on a responsible Supreme Court on a responsible body which is the final arbiter of America's laws on a specific Justice not dying during a specific President's term of office, cannot we do better as a people, cannot we create a better design for the highest Court of our country! How about making the mandatory retirement age of a Supreme Court Justice seventy-two years of age that would be five years past the Social Security full retirement age, ten years past the mandatory retirement age for people in the U.S. army! If there was a mandatory retirement age than the American people would have a bigger say on who gets put on the court because they would know when a President will have a seat to fill and they could factor that in with regard to how they vote in the respective Presidential election - therefore America would be a stronger Democrat country; not to mention Justice Thomas is currently seventy-two years of age and so would have to give up his seat!
Packing the court has merit, and you actually hit on the reason why when you mentioned mandatory retirement age for federal judges. The lifetime appointment precedent began when a "lifetime" for a white male, which was the only demographic that could even be a SCOTUS justice, was 50 years. I mean an appointment straight out of law school would only give a judge 25 years of service. Now, those judges could sit on the bench for 50 years, or more. Society changes, and it can change a lot in half a century. Why would a changing society accept a judicial branch that was appointed decades ago, under different social dynamics and with different judicial prudence. It makes no sense.
Furthermore, the elimination of the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees, an action of the Republican party, pretty much removed all pretense that a judge should be appointed on their merits, and not their political positions. Make no mistake about it, the founders would be absolutely appalled at what is happening now. I mean I will admit it, Sotomayer and Kagen, they got no business on the Supreme Court, seriously. There are far better jurists out there that would better serve our nation. They were partisan picks, period. But Kavenaugh and Barrett, well I got to say it. They are both absolute, certifiable, KOOKS. Kavenaugh demonstrated his eccentric personality during his hearing, I mean he literally came unglued. Most certainly showing he did not have the temperment required of a SCOTUS justice. Not to mention the fact that he has been a Republican operative for, oh I don't know, about TWO DECADES. But Barrett, well she is beyond the pale. For all intents and purposes she is the member of a religious cult. But a cult with some really strange views. For instance, you can't keep guns away from a felon, but you can deny them the right to vote. WTF. How does that make sense. And she is all about protecting life, I mean signed a document and everything. She believes one should protect life until natural death, except for the death penalty. Which makes no damn sense whatsoever. If you oppose abortion, which I do, then you should oppose the death penalty, which I do. Barrett does not have that moral integrity.
If you don't what the court packed, then bring back the filibuster. Sixty votes to confirm a nomination. And presidents need to start nominating the most qualified jurists, not the jurists they believe will tow the party line. Because what we have now is not what the founders intended. What we have now is court nominees based on political leanings, it is the antithesis of what the founders envisioned. And the Barrett nomination is a glaring example of what is wrong with the process. The opportunistic little twit has positioned herself for this nomination and she needs to be called out on it.
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