Hacker News Reader

Comment by edgyquant | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

There has not been a Democratic majority on the court in the last half century, and it is unlikely that there will be one for another half century.

There could have been one a few years ago, but a judicial nomination was held up for over a year, on blatantly partisan grounds. They all know that they were appointed for partisan reasons.

There are some very partisan cases appearing in front of the court and it is worth considering whether they will act in a partisan manner. There is reason why to believe that they have, and will. It should not just be up to the minority party to call for impartiality.

You are of course correct -- the last democrat-nominated majority was during the Kennedy/Johnson era.

The greatest majority lately was 8:1 during Bush Sr.

The last democrat supermajority was during Roosevelt/Truman, when all 9 justices were democrat-nominated.

For anyone who's interested, here's a google doc I created that shows the tenure of the justices with the party of the president that nominated them, starting from the end of Truman. It's been on my to-do list to extend it back to the first justices. Maybe I'll take that as a weekend project.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TKXH_wb29XumUAEXPGCn...

The fact that either the Republicans or the Democrats can influence the SCOTUS is worrying in itself.

Justice mixed with partisanship is incredibly dangerous to democracy.

Some justices recuse themselves some of the time. Others do not

https://fixthecourt.com/2022/12/recent-times-justice-failed-... shows that failure to recuse is a distinctly republican nominated justice problem. My politics lean left, but so do the facts in this case.

Thomas largely does not recuse himself. Given his wife’s interests and work, this is troubling. Damn near any case involving Trump or the GOP establishment should have Thomas stepping aside.

The rest of the Justices appear to recuse themselves regularly and properly.

I think at this point it's pretty obvious that Thomas is an angry and bitter man who is for whatever reason hell bent on "owning the libs". If we're stuck with this system of politicizing justices based upon the party that appoints them then at the very least I think term limits are appropriate. 12 years? 15? 20? I see no reason for this justice for life crap.

In Israel, the opposite problem exists - the country leans right and the justices lean left.

In the Israeli "constitution" the legal system is subordinate to the parliament. Practically, the courts have been taking more and more power to themselves, at one point even ruling that the Parliament Speaker (Edelstein) must quit. [His response was to complain about the courts brazen over-reach, but complied - thereby ceding that authority.]

There i now a push-back, as people wonder why "appointed for life" pols should have so much power.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com