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Comment by lliamander | Hacker News Reader

Do not make the mistake of thinking the politicians who represent you are particularly principled people.

The left has been talking about stacking the supreme court since Kavanaugh. Democratic senators played games with the filibuster. There are plenty of other examples of weaponizing politics that I could cite (from both sides).

I would like to see Senate Republicans show some fair play and wait for after the election, though there is some wisdom in wanting to avoid the possibility of a split decision should this election go to the supreme court.

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Seems highly unlikely that John Roberts would let any decision on the election be that close. He's too much of an institutionalist to not find some way to bring along most, if not all, of the Justices. Given that, it's really quite preferable that the seat go unfilled, eliminating the possibility of a 5-4 decision with Roberts writing the dissent, a situation that really would spell doom for American democracy.

I think that's pretty reasonable.

>The left has been talking about stacking the supreme court since Kavanaugh.

Considering the court has had a Republican majority since 1989, I don't blame them.

You don't think making the court an explicitly partisan institution by just stacking it whenever you are in power is going to be a bad idea? You don't think it will destroy the collegial attitude of the court that allowed Ginsburg and Scalia to be friends? You don't think Republicans will just do the same thing in response?

Judging by the wikipedia page on judicial leanings[1], Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorusch are all fairly moderate, whereas Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor are (relatively) more ideological. Only Alito and Thomas are particularly conservative.

And it's not like rulings have always been one-sided. I know plenty of conservatives have their gripes with Roberts.

Democratic appointees even held all nine seats during the 40's, and Republicans didn't stack the court.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_leanings_of_United...

Stacking is a bad idea, but the GOP would do it if they controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House. The GOP of the 1940s is not the GOP today. That political party is gone off the rails. The last time they were fiscally responsible, Eisenhower was in the White House.

The Supreme Court does need to be expanded though. It hears half the cases it did fifty years ago. While they are at it, split the Ninth Circuit. Give California its own circuit since the majority cases originate from that state.

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