DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Ginsburg says she opposes proposals from 2020 Democrats to expand the Supreme Court

Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she opposes proposals from 2020 Democrats to expand the Supreme Court

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she opposes proposals by Democratic presidential candidates to increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court because doing so would make it look partisan.

“It would be that — one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to,’” Ginsburg told NPR in an interview that aired Wednesday.

“Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time,” she said Tuesday.

Several Democratic candidates have said they are open to increasing the size of the nine-justice court.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said shortly after entering the race that expanding the court to 15 members is an “idea we should explore.” Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has made court reform a centerpiece of his campaign, including the idea of court expansion. Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have said they are open to the idea.

But Ginsburg, the court’s most senior liberal justice, said the idea contradicts the premise of an independent judicial branch.

“We are blessed in the way no other judiciary is in the world,” she said. “We have life tenure. The only way to get rid of a federal judge is by impeachment. Congress can’t retaliate by reducing our salary, so the safeguards for judicial independence in this country, I think, are as great or greater than any place else in the world.”

The comments from a sitting associate justice touching on current campaign proposals are notable. Ginsburg was criticized during the last presidential election for wading into electoral politics. In 2016, she called then-candidate Donald Trump a “faker,” and later apologized.

In the NPR interview, Ginsburg did not criticize any candidate by name. And she reached back into history, noting that “it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court.”

Roosevelt infamously failed to expand the size of the Supreme Court in 1937 to 15 after the court rejected a number of his New Deal reforms. His court expansion proposal failed in Congress.

In the interview, Ginsburg also addressed concerns about her health. The 86-year-old justice missed oral arguments for the first time in 25 years last term after undergoing surgery to remove a growth from her left lung. A decade ago, Ginsburg was treated for pancreatic cancer.

“There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced, with great glee, that I was going to be dead within six months. That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now dead himself, ” she told NPR. “And I am very much alive.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/24/ruth-bad...reme-court.html

Aww, now you have gone and lost Ruthy.

RBG is smart.

Stealing that quote from Abraham Lincoln is plagiarism!

Stacking the court like FDR advocated is a bad idea.

Then when McConnell stole the Garland seat for the 'next president', you should have spoke up. Trump and McConnell have been systematically stacking the courts for years.

So what about the hearing yesterday? LOL

Nice deflection away from how McConnell helped stack the court for the GOP.

What hearing are you talking about?

Ginsburg defends Kavanaugh, Gorsuch as 'very decent, very smart individuals'

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Wednesday night defended Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch as "very decent" and "very smart" individuals after one of her former law clerks suggested that new nominees lack personal decency.

Ginsburg's comments turned heads on social media, given the contentious and bitterly personal confirmation hearings last year that Kavanaugh said "destroyed" his family.

At an hourlong question-and-answer session, Duke Law professor Neil Siegel lamented that "nominees for the Supreme Court are not chosen primarily anymore for independence, legal ability, personal decency, and I wonder if that’s a loss for all of us."

Ginsburg shot back, "My two newest colleagues are very decent, very smart individuals." The exchange was first reported by The National Review.

It wasn't the first time that the court's liberal lion defended Kavanaugh. Earlier this month, at a series of events, Ginsburg, 86, praised him for being the first justice to hire an all-female team of law clerks.

“Justice Kavanaugh made history by bringing on board an all-female law clerk crew,” Ginsburg said at an event in New York. “Thanks to his selections, the court has this term, for the first time ever, more women than men serving as law clerks.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ginsbur...art-individuals

Somebody at fox doing a weekend at Bernie's schtick with RGB? lol

A big thumbs up to you Ruth, hopefully, President Trump can keep the women appointments in order by nominating Amy Coney Barrett as your replacement to the Supreme Court.

He won't be around long enough.

I don't think so. He puts 20,000 in to arenas with waiting lines and the dem's get 1500.


I do know you have 30 people seeking.

The problem is the Dems have fringe lunatics taking over.


So tell me your views. Don't be a echo. Are you good with socialism because that is where your party is heading?

Socialism is being used as nothing more than a catch phrase here. Socialism is when the government runs and rules business. It has nothing to do with social issues. But you actually know that.

I'm big on promoting social issues but not a socialist government.

I'm for our people all having healthcare. Many of the very people that oppose healthcare for all treat their pets better than that.

I'm for making college more affordable through some common sense measures but not "free college for all".

Now you seem to wish to point out "the crazies" on the left. But let's not pretend that you don't have a lot of "the crazies" on the right.

I promote a moderate democratic candidate because Trump sickens any normal American that care about human decency. He's a divisive and nasty human being. And no matter what you say, you know that.

And in case you missed it, I'm not a Democrat. But I will be voting that way in 2020. Because the party you tout has abandoned everything they once stood for and Reagan is rolling over in his grave right now.

You are kidding, right? Healthcare and health insurance are two of the biggest businesses in this country.



I don't know a single person who does not want healthcare for all. Such liberal blather. The problem is much deeper than what a person/people "want" for other people. Your side forced a flawed law upon the country and that thing has imploded. Now they want to make it the foundation of their platform. Laughable.



That racist monster who has lifted millions from the dependency of government assistance, ignited an economy, started the rise of wages and reduced unemployment to a whisper. The only guy to actually address the issue at the border is a racist because he's the only one who cares-enough or has the stones-enough to say and do what has been needed done for decades.

To top off your flawed view, you insist that you know what other people "really" think when their written words prove the opposite.



Trump is the modern day Reagan. Here to clean up the mess he inherited from our modern day (but dangerous) Carter.

Clueless runs deep throughout the right... Factless too.

Yet most every nation in the free world has a national healthcare program. They are all democracies. Like I said, it's just a label the right uses to prevent their fellow citizens from having healthcare.



You mean after the republicans tore it all to hell before it could be passed? And yeah, only 20 million more people have healthcare now because of Obamacare.



You mean all the working poor still making less than ten dollars an hour and don't have any healthcare? Those people? But yes, he inherited a healthy economy and has greased the hands of business with a huge tax cut. So far he's managed to buy and pay for the economy to get even better.