politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- 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.
- 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
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
It was not.
Congress would first have to remove the cap set by the Judicial Act of 1969.
That was in congressional Democrats' hands. But in order to pass the Senate, we would have needed 60 Democrats, all of whom would need to actually vote with their party. Or we would need to have a simple majority, at least 50 of whom would be willing to get rid of the filibuster forever. We had the majority. Just enough Democrats preferred the return of coat hanger abortions to relegating a procedural relic of Jim Crow to the shitpile of history where it has always belonged.
That cap was one supreme court judge per circuit court. As there are 13 circuits now, it's precedent FOR expanding the court, not against.
Ah, the eternal "we can't do the obviously right thing because of the filibuster" Dem leadership excuse. Turns out that, like most of their other excuses, that's complete hogwash
Again, not true. That's just another "we are powerless to change anything because the system won't let us" copout from the party eternally protecting the status quo that is so lucrative for them.
To quote the article linked above:
This is a very interesting distinction. Thank you for this info.
Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying. Democrats could have ended the filibuster with a simple majority, but they didn't want to. They preferred allowing Republicans to win on abortion to getting rid of their procedural excuse for inaction.
And I'm saying that they didn't even have to do THAT, they could just suspend it temporarily any time they want. They don't need 50 votes to permanently dismantle it when they can already do it at will on a case by case basis.
My reading of the law differs from yours on this, but I believe we agree more broadly that Democrats desperately need to stop making excuses and get out of their own way.