A sharply divided Supreme Court has ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority in trying to cancel or reduce student loan debts for millions of Americans.
They are not completely within their power to pack the court, sadly. They would have done so already if this were the case. They need 60 in the senate as well as a majority in the house and the presidency. Then they could.
Excuse me but to my knowledge the House is not needed for appoint judges, the president nominates and the Senate votes to appoint. The Senate would simply need a majority and I’m pretty sure Dems have the majority in the Senate.
The House is not needed to appoint justices, but the size of the Supreme Court is set by federal law, and you need the House to change that law to go beyond nine justices.
Technically, they don’t need 60. The cloture rule is what necessitates a 3/5ths supermajority to pass bills, but the cloture rule is not itself a law and so Senators can just… change it with a simple-majority vote. This has already happened twice in the recent past: once in 2013 when the Democrat-led Senate voted to eliminate the cloture rule when nominating federal circuit judges and once more in 2017 when the Ruplican-led Senate voted to eliminate the cloture rule when nominating supreme court justices.
FWIW: Senators tend to really hate doing this. They call it the “nuclear option” because they normally like to get a 2/3rds supermajority agreement before changing any standing Senate rules – not to mention that the cloture rule itself is often treated as a total third-rail even among the other important Senate procedures. Combining the nuclear option and killing cloture is a massive political powderkeg waiting to explode… but maybe it should?
I like how when Democrats are in power, they’re unable to do anything…
But when Republicans are in power, they break the law at lightning speed, do things they’re not supposed to do, and nobody stops them because actually the only thing staying in their way are “rules” and “decorum” and not “laws” and yet mysteriously the Democrats are always beholden to “laws” that prevent them from doing the same. Also it seems like Democrats hands are tied at actually bringing criminal charges against Republicans because that would be “partisan.”[1] Just look at how they’ve slow-walked Trump’s prosecution and only went for it when it became clear he would never comply.
They are not completely within their power to pack the court, sadly. They would have done so already if this were the case. They need 60 in the senate as well as a majority in the house and the presidency. Then they could.
Excuse me but to my knowledge the House is not needed for appoint judges, the president nominates and the Senate votes to appoint. The Senate would simply need a majority and I’m pretty sure Dems have the majority in the Senate.
The House is not needed to appoint justices, but the size of the Supreme Court is set by federal law, and you need the House to change that law to go beyond nine justices.
Technically, they don’t need 60. The cloture rule is what necessitates a 3/5ths supermajority to pass bills, but the cloture rule is not itself a law and so Senators can just… change it with a simple-majority vote. This has already happened twice in the recent past: once in 2013 when the Democrat-led Senate voted to eliminate the cloture rule when nominating federal circuit judges and once more in 2017 when the Ruplican-led Senate voted to eliminate the cloture rule when nominating supreme court justices.
FWIW: Senators tend to really hate doing this. They call it the “nuclear option” because they normally like to get a 2/3rds supermajority agreement before changing any standing Senate rules – not to mention that the cloture rule itself is often treated as a total third-rail even among the other important Senate procedures. Combining the nuclear option and killing cloture is a massive political powderkeg waiting to explode… but maybe it should?
I guess full throated fascism and authoritarianism isn’t enough to consider a “nuclear option.”
I like how when Democrats are in power, they’re unable to do anything…
But when Republicans are in power, they break the law at lightning speed, do things they’re not supposed to do, and nobody stops them because actually the only thing staying in their way are “rules” and “decorum” and not “laws” and yet mysteriously the Democrats are always beholden to “laws” that prevent them from doing the same. Also it seems like Democrats hands are tied at actually bringing criminal charges against Republicans because that would be “partisan.”[1] Just look at how they’ve slow-walked Trump’s prosecution and only went for it when it became clear he would never comply.
It’s a fucking farce.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/19/politics/fbi-doj-trump-investigation-january-6/index.html ↩︎