788

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito no doubt intended to shock the political world when he told interviewers for the Wall Street Journal that “No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

Many observers dismissed his comment out of hand, noting the express language in Article III, establishing the court’s jurisdiction under “such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

But Alito wasn’t bluffing. His recently issued statement, declining to recuse himself in a controversial case, was issued without a single citation or reference to the controlling federal statute. Nor did he mention or adhere to the test for recusal that other justices have acknowledged in similar circumstances. It was as though he declared himself above the law.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 197 points 1 year ago

No part of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power of judicial review either. The court created that power out of nothing. If you wanna get pissy, Alito.

[-] Madison420@lemmy.world 78 points 1 year ago

Or sovereign immunity, absolute immunity and qualified immunity. They're just shit the court made up.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 46 points 1 year ago

He seems to think he's above the Constitution. Probably thinks he's Judge Dredd.

[-] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 year ago

To the iso-cubes with them

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Nahvi@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I can't tell you how happy I am to see someone point this out here.

As if the ridiculous set of laws we have weren't bloated enough already, the nearly bottomless stack of court cases that modify them all and stack on each other make it impossible to have a fair trial.

[-] DemBoSain@midwest.social 8 points 1 year ago

It's telling that the people who want to eliminate the Executive Departments because they don't have Constitutional authority to create laws have been silent on Judicial Review.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

And he always wants to get pissy.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 80 points 1 year ago

Dissolve the court. Arrest Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh - the crimes committed by those four are known to the public. Appoint a special investigator for each remaining justice. If they've so much as taken a stick of chewing gum from someone with business before the court imprison them too. Every one of them is delinquent in their duty to preserve the impartiality and legitimacy of the court. Every one of them has cosigned Alito's statement that the court is above regulation. Every one of them endorses this clown show where the highest court in the land is blatantly, publicly for sale. If they won't protect the legitimacy of the court we need to take steps to protect the legitimacy of the court from them. They can declare themselves immune from prosecution but no one is immune from the will of a people united in their support for real justice.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 36 points 1 year ago

Hey I thought we had rules against porn here

[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago
[-] lateraltwo@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Dissolve the court, arrest reverendsteveii

[-] Nahvi@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

At least 59 people think this is a high quality post or more likely just agree with it.

no one is immune from the will of a people united in their support for real justice

How do you intend to enforce that will? While you aren't saying it outright it almost sounds like you are thinking about grabbing a red hat and storming the building.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Hairyblue@kbin.social 66 points 1 year ago

Add more justices to the court. Then Alito's opinion will not matter so much.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

The Judiciary Act of 1869 sets the size of the Supreme Court at 9. Congress would have to pass a law to make that happen.

In order:

The Republican controlled House won't vote for it.

Republicans in the Senate would filibuster it.

Democrats in the Senate will never get rid of the filibuster because they love their procedural excuse for breaking campaign promises.

[-] Pantsofmagic@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Yes but according to Alito, Congress has no power over the supreme court so that act is moot and anyone can just make up a number.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago
[-] uis@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm going to say n- and r-words here. National referendum.

[-] slurpeesoforion@startrek.website 12 points 1 year ago

Wheew. I thought you were going to say National Razor.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Nahvi@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Congress will never agree to give up anymore power than the other branches already take.

Short of a Constitutional Convention we will never see this passed. Unfortunately, a Constitutional Convention is a dangerous game even when we are less divided as a nation. The last one produced a new constitution instead of edits to the old one.

Could you imagine what a constitution would like like if it was written by the current bunch of goobers running the country?

[-] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Sounds like Alito is having a mental break with reality and needs round the clock psychiatric care to ensure his safety. Clearly unfit to sit on any court.

[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago

The Supreme Court should be elected by popular vote and have to be reconfirmed by the states every four years.

[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 84 points 1 year ago

One national election every four years is enough for me. I can't even imagine what the campaigns for judges with the power to rewrite the Constitution through creative interpretation would look like, but if they can put Trump in the White House, they could put him on the Supreme Court.

Term limits. Active oversight. Maybe go back to requiring 60+ votes to confirm so the GOP can't shove the Federalist Society hack-of-the-day through with a simple majority.

[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago

The problem with requiring 60 plus votes is that it's would be open season for the GOP to prevent nominations, then the second they had the Senate again, they'd remove the rule. Just like they did the last time.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] BB69@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

No. Judges should not be political. I don’t know the answer here, but being an elected official isn’t the right course.

[-] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Yeah, if anything their selection needs to be further removed from the political process.

[-] DharkStare@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe the supreme Court should be like jury duty. Randomly select from a pool of judges from around the country to fill the position for a certain period of time.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

It's always going to be political, they just pretend to be above it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Judges should not be political

Judges are already absolutely political. Judges get appointed based on whether they'll support the policy agenda of the person appointing them. Being said, I'm with you inasmuch as giving the people who made Donald Trump president the power to pick the supreme court all by themselves is a bad fucking idea.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 54 points 1 year ago

That's how you get Trump on the Supreme Court. Elected justices is not great.

My solution is ~16 year terms spaced out like Senate terms, where if the person dies or retires the appointment just fills out their term, and each presidential term gets an appointment or two. Removes the benefit of appointing someone young so we can have more experience on the court.

[-] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 year ago

My country solved the problem by having 9 years non renewable terms and requiring a 2/3 majority in the parliament to elect a judge. This avoids them thinking they are the state and prevents any hyper partisan hack from entering the court. Of course this is only possible because none of the major parties is trying to make the state implode but it works well.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] zdrvr@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

9 justices 18 year terms. Staggered so that every 2 year election cycle 1 justice is up for election by popular vote. Required to be member of Bar in at least one state.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Remember, the supreme court thinks regulation means well armed.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

I see more and more crazy stuff happening in the US. Will there be any actual change or are we just going to see more crazy?

[-] NAK@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Don't let the media portrayal of the current times affect you reality. Most of the stuff going on now has been going on forever and will continue to go on forever.

Take the faithless electors. There have been a total of 58 elections in which 165 electors have not cast their vote as the state prescribed. This first Wikipedia quotes was in 1835

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Congress gives a major check on the Supreme Court: they’re the only branch without access to the military. They can make their decisions, and they can attempt to enforce them. But they oughta remember that they’re the ones with no sway on enforcement

[-] droans@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

That's what SCOTUS seems to miss. Their entire power comes from the belief in their authority. If Congress or the Executive Branch chose to ignore their ruling, they can't do anything.

The danger with the Supreme Court was never that they would make awful rulings that we'd follow. It was that they would make rulings so awful that we'd have little choice but to reject their authority, creating a system without the checks of the court.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] GreenMario@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago

Abolish the Supreme Court.

[-] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 19 points 1 year ago

Why would he ever bluff? He holds all the cards!

[-] ohlaph@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
788 points (97.9% liked)

politics

19240 readers
1827 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS