The court is an expression of political power. Expressing political power through it is not stupid.
So you would get to pack the court for the rest of your current term before the other party gets back in and packs it the other way, and thereafter lose the courts as a check on the party in power forever because the first thing a party would do when they get into power is pack the courts.
It's a monumentally stupid idea.
It would need to come with a commitment to a package of difficult to undo (i.e. amendments) reforms. SCOTUS term limits, preventing the Senate from refusing to even consider nominees, bans on justices receiving gifts (https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-un...), revocation of Presidential immunity, etc. You pack the court with an explicit promise to largely return to the old status quo when it's fixed.
On top of that, Clarence Thomas is the oldest person on the court and Alito is only two years younger. By the end of the next Presidential term they'll both be in their 80s. You don't have to pack the court, you just have to be in office for the term or two after this one.
That's not what it looks like in most cases. In the first half of any term the next election can't gain you the Presidency but it could lose you the Senate. On top of that, when it isn't the deciding vote, e.g. the first of either Alito or Thomas to be replaced, a moderate is a much better hedge than the coin flip even in the second half of a term, because if you take the moderate and then lose the next election at least you have the moderate in the other party's majority, meanwhile if you win the next election then you keep the majority regardless.
Which is to say, that's only likely to happen in the next few years if it happens for the second of the two Justices in the second half of a Presidential term and the Democrats lose the subsequent Presidential election.
I don't think it's 100% possible to stop a determined political movement in the US from doing A Holocaust, but I think it's worth at least trying to make it tough.
We can't 100% prevent anything; the Constitution could get amended to permit mass summary executions, with enough votes and public support. That doesn't mean it's not worth trying to make that tougher to accomplish.
That is what I describe as the "package" of reforms, yes.
> The thing that would help that is a constitutional amendment prohibiting court packing.
Good idea! Pack the court, and in that law, include a trigger provision that repeals it as soon as said amendment is passed.
(This has similarly been proposed in gerrymandering.)
Except then the other party just packs the court again instead of passing the amendment, whereas if you already have the votes to pass the amendment then you would just do that without packing the court.
The easiest time to reduce executive power is when your party is in the executive branch to sign the bill.
This has the exact same problem you're complaining my proposal has; it can be undone, quite easily. Probably more easily.
The best case scenario would be to somehow get both parties actually targeting the other's corruption instead of just trying to get the votes needed to be the ones sticking the money in their own pockets.
We form other courts by lot. Constitutionally, there just must be a Supreme Court. It doesn’t say how it should be composed.
Packing is a band-aid, and likely to be unpopular. This is a fix with a less nakedly-partisan result, so should be easier to sell.
Democrats are finally waking up to this, I think, given the recent retaliatory gerrymandering in CA and VA.
"Mom, he punched me back after I sucker-punched him!"
Nobody would have cared about Texas' gerrymandering except for Trump (stupidly) called for it - pretty much every political party has done it in their state over the years, but it's generally been gently putting their finger on the scale. But now that someone that half of the country have been convinced is literally Hitler had a part in it they feel like they can go absolutely wild with it. Everyone should be mad when gerrymandering happens, whether it helps your side or not. Representatives that feel absolutely secure in their seats are bad at their jobs, whether they're on your side or not. Going so hogwild in 'retribution' isn't virtuous.
I'm not defending what was done in Texas. Gerrymandering is gross. But I do hate how the discourse seems to be that Texas started it. They absolutely didn't. Neither party can be blamed for that, and this tit and tat back and forth is the wrong way to deal with it - so are so called "nonpartisan" committees, by the way. It's easy for a nonpartisan committee to quickly become quite partisan. What I wish would have happened is that there was a real dialogue about better fixes for the problem, but instead it became political mudslinging.
Easy part solution - put mathematical limits on the geometry. It wouldn't eliminate gerrymandering but it would certainly help.
Are you should that would have been a good idea?
Part of the problem is it requires an amendment so you need a super majority.
Imo democrats are waiting until they have enough of a majority to tank the reputation hit court packing would bring, but then lock it to 15 after they do so.
[1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley...
...would have been sentenced for his 34 felony convictions and probably never get reelected?
I don't think a Biden-packed SC would've found the President to be immune to criminal charges, no.
> And my understanding was he was sentenced for the felonies, to unconditional discharge, because he was days away from beginning his second term.
He was sentenced to nothing, directly because of the SCOTUS ruling. Per the judge: "the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land".
Pre-SCOTUS ruling, no such "encroachment" existed.
Again, at the actual sentencing, his ruling stated an unconditional discharge was "the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land".
"I can sentence you, but only to nothing" is functionally not being able to sentence him.
Anyway, in agreement with your larger point, the legal analyst at https://youtu.be/4tbaDI7ycrA?t=592 says he believe this SCOTUS would not have allowed a real sentence, so my nitpicking about the interaction of the 2024 decision with the lower court's sentencing doesn't matter much; SCOTUS would have let Trump go either way, and probably a Biden-packed court wouldn't have.
It's just another sign that modern Republicans aren't truly "Constitution-lovers" or textualists, that their leader is only safe because judicial activism invented immunity for him.
No, I'm thinking of the get-out-of-jail card they gave him in Trump v. US that immediately impacted NY v. Trump.
> Then if he hadn’t been electable, he would have been sentenced to serve time.
No, I think an electable person should still be able to be locked up for crimes.
> Or are you okay with partisan hacks in the SC as long as they are Dems instead?
I think the only chance of saving SCOTUS from partisan hackery is to stop surrendering.
SCOTUS doesn't rule on criminal cases, sentencing for state level crimes is done at the state level and he could have still run for president in jail.
The fact that the conviction only made his polling go up should tell you what the result of jailing him would have been.
SCOTUS ruled that the President has immunity from criminal prosecution.
> sentencing for state level crimes is done at the state level
SCOTUS ruled that said immunity applies to state crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States#Opinion...
This was... rather large news.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/10/trump-unconditional...
> “This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land is a sentence of unconditional discharge,” Merchan said at the sentencing.
And yet he was criminally prosecuted.
> And they very regularly rule on other, more mundane criminal cases.
Sorry, they don't convict in criminal cases.
> “This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land is a sentence of unconditional discharge,” Merchan said at the sentencing.
You're conflating things again. He was not punished for his crimes. That doesn't mean he was not convicted. You can't be immune and convicted. If he was immune, the case would have been thrown out. He's still a felon and so, clearly, not immune.
The immunity granted by SCOTUS was far more limited in scope than news outlets would have you believe.
> We have precisely zero information on what a campaign by a jailed candidate who can't travel, campaign, or schmooze donors would result in.
This time it will be different, surely!
BEFORE THE RULING.
Come on.
Bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause
SCOTUS overturns state laws and convictions plenty.
State criminal case: https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/02/25/u-s-supreme-court-tosse...
State laws held unconstitutional: https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/state-laws-held-uncon...
We're already down that road; SCOTUS put us on it.
The question is now how much damage it'll do to the car to do a U-turn.
> would hopefully lead to immediate impeachment…
This describes like a hundred things in the Trump second term so far.
I'm so sick of the rhetoric. As someone who is fairly middle politically it's pretty hard to deal with the left right now; it's like they're living in another world. On the other hand, Republicans are useless. What a wonderful situation we're in.
I know the rules say to assume good faith but I don't see how anyone can do that given what you wrote. I'm really struggling to understand how that is your main takeaway from all the events that transpired that day.
But rather than rehash that maybe it's better to focus on current events. What are your thoughts on Trump, the first day assuming office in his second term, issuing a blanket pardon for all of the crimes his supporters committed that day in his name? Why would Trump who just wanted people to "protest peacefully," pardon those convicted of... beating officers with a flag pole, stomping on officers' heads, and crushing an officer in a metal door frame using a riot shield?
I do agree with you on one thing though:
> it's like they're living in another world
It truly saddens me to see so many people living in completely different realities. But I honestly don't think it's me or the person you're replying to that decided to relocate.
I'm not a fan of Trump, and I certainly don't think that blanket pardon was appropriate. Neither was Biden's pardon of those close to him for any crime they could have possibly committed.
For what it's worth a lot of those people did get pretty ridiculous sentences for what was effectively a riot. Some probably deserved it, many did not. Compare their sentences to those that happened during 2020 riots and you'll see a massive imbalance.
In the first year of his second term Trump has repeatedly nationalized other states' national guards, against the judgement of those states' governors. He also threatened to deploy one state's national guard into "blue states" the President has personal grievances with. Let's not get into the why because the why is clearly not relevant to your comment, "I don't know what more he could have done."
Once again, you're either not responding here in good faith or you need to take a long honest reflection at how you came to that absurd conclusion.
nope not true at all. go away troll
> Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court determined that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution presumptively extends to all of a president's "official acts" – with absolute immunity for official acts within an exclusive presidential authority that Congress cannot regulate such as the pardon, command of the military, execution of laws, or control of the executive branch
Seems accurate.
1. Immunity for core constitutional powers
2. Presumptive immunity for official acts.
3. No difference from anyone else for non-official acts