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The supreme court partisanship is overstated. It's brought out all the time as though the sky is falling, but typically when the court is tilted, side-switching

The supreme court partisanship is overstated. It's brought out all the time as though the sky is falling, but typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears. Roberts, Gorsuch, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter all switched sides on major issues. Conservatives switch sides a lot more often, but perhaps because the court has been tilted towards Republican nominees.

colinmhayes 6y ago
Sure, but partisanship is getting much worse. The precedent has now been set to completely reject any nomination from the opposing party. That will lead to even more partisanship as nominating "moderates" no longer makes sense. We're in for a future of nothing but Alito's and Thomas's.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Partisanship in the nomination process, sure, but it remains to be seen if the more recent nominees will be impartial judges. After all, several court decisions have already not gone the way the gop wanted.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    It does indeed remain to be seen—but those recent cases were completely ludicrous! That some semblance of logic remains does not help me sleep at night.
    - chmod600 6y ago
      What recent cases?
- chmod600 6y ago
  That's partisanship of Congress, not the Supreme Court. When it comes down to real decisions by SCOTUS, they usually come out more moderate and narrow than you might imagine.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    In the past that has been true. But if every confirmation from now on is as partisan as Alito and Thomas are(who as far as I'm aware almost never rule against republican causes) that will soon cease to be the case.
    - chmod600 6y ago
      I don't see how Alito and Thomas show a trend here. Roberts joined after Thomas and Gorsuch joined after Alito, and both have a more independent record. Among the Democrat appointees, Kagan has a more independent record than Sotomayor but came afterward. I know there are counterexamples but my point is that there's not an obvious trend toward more partisan justices, or at least no evidence has been presented so far in this thread.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
pmoriarty 6y ago
"when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears" Two sides of a conservative position.
- chmod600 6y ago
  I mean Republican-appointed justices joining the Democrat-appointed justices in an opinion. Are you saying all nine are conservatives?
  - jaggederest 6y ago
    Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? The US, in general, does not have any non-conservative judiciary. Stare decisis by itself ensures that there is a strong conservative streak in the available pool of jurists. So yes, the Supreme court has center-left (Sotomayor), centrist (Breyer, Kagan), center-right(Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch), and reactionaries (Alito and Thomas), but nobody as far "left" as it has "right". Historically, for example, William O. Douglas was about as left as the court has gotten, and he was more in favor of environmentalism and ending the Vietnam war than really aggressive left wing concepts.
    - chmod600 6y ago
      The original claim was that thr Supreme Court has become highly partisan. The fact that justices switch sides and join with appointees of the opposite party is evidence against that claim. Now you're bringing up a different claim, which is that the two major parties don't really represent a variety of ideas. That's a fine claim to make, but it doesn't contradict my point.
      - jaggederest 6y ago
        My point is that there is no "switch sides", because there are only 1.5 sides. Also, partisanship isn't the only force determining outcomes in the supreme court, it's just the most important one for many purposes. The other major shift is actually more along the axis of social libertarian vs authoritarian, which is not as clearly divided as "republican vs democrat", especially considering the late RBG was clearly an authoritarian in some respects, despite being fairly left of center. Taking any of this as evidence that the court is non-partisan is pretty incorrect: They're consistently partisan in clearly obvious ways, even controlling for other issues.
CameronNemo 6y ago
>typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears For people like me, I don't care what "side" a justice is on. The justices literally choose which cases they accept... Of course there will be some debate on them. What I find absolutely horrid is that the courts are packed with nominees hand selected by a group of US senators who not only cannot represent the majority of the US population/citizenry, but are also actively antagonistic toward people's will to determine their own future (see obstructionism by McConnell during the Obama years).
- chmod600 6y ago
  "Packed" is a loaded term in the context of the courts. I assume you just mean there are a lot of Republican apointees. Part of the job of the Senate is to represent the minority. They typically aren't the starting place for major legislation, but often slow down or heavily amend it. You could argue that the minority should have no power at all, I suppose. Democrats used a similar argument to remove the judicial filibuster, which was a great idea right until they became the minority in the Senate. That's really the big lesson that people never seem to learn about democracy: you'll be in the minority at some point, so get protections/obstacles in place while you're in the majority, or you'll regret it sooner than you think.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    There are a lot of Republican appointees because the Republicans have been playing political hardball with judicial nominations for decades. The Democrats eliminated judicial filibusters because Republicans were attempting to prevent Obama from getting any judges on the bench in the two years the Democrats had the Senate. Then they lost the Senate and the Republicans simply stopped allowing Obama to get judges on the bench, creating a huge backlog which they could fill when Trump took the presidency. Then they eliminated the blue slip rule to further weaken any control the Democrats might have over the process. And they have expanded state courts, a.k.a "packed them". All of this has the same practical consequence: controlling policy outcomes you can't win through elections by nullifying them in the courts. Sure, this is a lesson about democracy. It's a lesson about how to subvert democracy.

colinmhayes 6y ago

Sure, but partisanship is getting much worse. The precedent has now been set to completely reject any nomination from the opposing party. That will lead to even more partisanship as nominating "moderates" no longer makes sense. We're in for a future of nothing but Alito's and Thomas's.

jjeaff 6y ago
Partisanship in the nomination process, sure, but it remains to be seen if the more recent nominees will be impartial judges. After all, several court decisions have already not gone the way the gop wanted.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  It does indeed remain to be seen—but those recent cases were completely ludicrous! That some semblance of logic remains does not help me sleep at night.
  - chmod600 6y ago
    What recent cases?
chmod600 6y ago
That's partisanship of Congress, not the Supreme Court. When it comes down to real decisions by SCOTUS, they usually come out more moderate and narrow than you might imagine.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  In the past that has been true. But if every confirmation from now on is as partisan as Alito and Thomas are(who as far as I'm aware almost never rule against republican causes) that will soon cease to be the case.
  - chmod600 6y ago
    I don't see how Alito and Thomas show a trend here. Roberts joined after Thomas and Gorsuch joined after Alito, and both have a more independent record. Among the Democrat appointees, Kagan has a more independent record than Sotomayor but came afterward. I know there are counterexamples but my point is that there's not an obvious trend toward more partisan justices, or at least no evidence has been presented so far in this thread.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

pmoriarty 6y ago

"when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears" Two sides of a conservative position.

chmod600 6y ago
I mean Republican-appointed justices joining the Democrat-appointed justices in an opinion. Are you saying all nine are conservatives?
- jaggederest 6y ago
  Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? The US, in general, does not have any non-conservative judiciary. Stare decisis by itself ensures that there is a strong conservative streak in the available pool of jurists. So yes, the Supreme court has center-left (Sotomayor), centrist (Breyer, Kagan), center-right(Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch), and reactionaries (Alito and Thomas), but nobody as far "left" as it has "right". Historically, for example, William O. Douglas was about as left as the court has gotten, and he was more in favor of environmentalism and ending the Vietnam war than really aggressive left wing concepts.
  - chmod600 6y ago
    The original claim was that thr Supreme Court has become highly partisan. The fact that justices switch sides and join with appointees of the opposite party is evidence against that claim. Now you're bringing up a different claim, which is that the two major parties don't really represent a variety of ideas. That's a fine claim to make, but it doesn't contradict my point.
    - jaggederest 6y ago
      My point is that there is no "switch sides", because there are only 1.5 sides. Also, partisanship isn't the only force determining outcomes in the supreme court, it's just the most important one for many purposes. The other major shift is actually more along the axis of social libertarian vs authoritarian, which is not as clearly divided as "republican vs democrat", especially considering the late RBG was clearly an authoritarian in some respects, despite being fairly left of center. Taking any of this as evidence that the court is non-partisan is pretty incorrect: They're consistently partisan in clearly obvious ways, even controlling for other issues.

CameronNemo 6y ago

>typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears For people like me, I don't care what "side" a justice is on. The justices literally choose which cases they accept... Of course there will be some debate on them. What I find absolutely horrid is that the courts are packed with nominees hand selected by a group of US senators who not only cannot represent the majority of the US population/citizenry, but are also actively antagonistic toward people's will to determine their own future (see obstructionism by McConnell during the Obama years).

chmod600 6y ago
"Packed" is a loaded term in the context of the courts. I assume you just mean there are a lot of Republican apointees. Part of the job of the Senate is to represent the minority. They typically aren't the starting place for major legislation, but often slow down or heavily amend it. You could argue that the minority should have no power at all, I suppose. Democrats used a similar argument to remove the judicial filibuster, which was a great idea right until they became the minority in the Senate. That's really the big lesson that people never seem to learn about democracy: you'll be in the minority at some point, so get protections/obstacles in place while you're in the majority, or you'll regret it sooner than you think.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  There are a lot of Republican appointees because the Republicans have been playing political hardball with judicial nominations for decades. The Democrats eliminated judicial filibusters because Republicans were attempting to prevent Obama from getting any judges on the bench in the two years the Democrats had the Senate. Then they lost the Senate and the Republicans simply stopped allowing Obama to get judges on the bench, creating a huge backlog which they could fill when Trump took the presidency. Then they eliminated the blue slip rule to further weaken any control the Democrats might have over the process. And they have expanded state courts, a.k.a "packed them". All of this has the same practical consequence: controlling policy outcomes you can't win through elections by nullifying them in the courts. Sure, this is a lesson about democracy. It's a lesson about how to subvert democracy.