Let's not pretend that the current situation represents anything like "normal", and further, that we don't all recognize that bad-faith actions by the Republican party are responsible.
Yeah, that's because change happened.
Pretending that something can't be done because it worked for hundreds of years and then something bad happened isn't actually very correct.
The court has been an illegitimate and partisan body ever since Garland's seat was denied.
It's a much bigger problem then just this.
Yes, it was. What's your point?
Parent poster claimed that a non-political Supreme Court isn't possible, and in reality, the Supreme Court has been essentially completely non-political for all but about 22 years of its existence
Blockade of judges started in 2001, when Democrats declared Bush illigetimate, and decided that no judges would be selected. Republicans threatened the "nuclear option" (removing fillibusters). The "Gang of 14" in 2005 wrote ideological ground rules and approved a set number of judges to keep the nuclear option from being used.
Obama came to office, and the Democrats used the nuclear option - despite the gang of 14 framework, but then said that it doesn't apply to supreme court ballots. Republicans came in and decided that yes, it did apply.
We've been destroying our own government with crap like this for the last 20 years.
Partisanship is a hell of a drug.
It’s not their job to write laws or advance policy, it’s their job to enforce the constitution as written.
A textualist reading of the First Amendment would permit the President to infringe free speech/religion/press etc. rights, as it says "Congress", and the "no law" bit would texutally forbid things like banning human sacrifice in religious ceremonies.
Textualists always find an out when they need one.
Humans will always bring bias, but I can’t think of anything better than “interpret as it was plainly written and would have been understood by the people who wrote it at the time”.
> Do you have a better suggestion that’s less partisan and less prone to abuse?
I'm of the opinion that textualism, in actual practice, is a highly partisan and heavily abused concept intended to be a thin veil over "I rule the way I want". I prefer the concept of a living Constitution; per Jefferson:
> I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
A textualist reading of the Second Amendment doesn't permit banning of personally owned nuclear arms.
Textualists don't seem too interested in overruling the relevant unconstitutional laws in these cases.
(Yes, I've read it. It's vague - deliberately, I'd argue - in spots, like in defining "general welfare", and some folks like to pretend things like the Ninth Amendment don't exist at all.)