newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:01 am Death is always sad, especially Ginsberg who had a long career on the Supreme Court.

But I respectfully disagree.

Her death is absolutely timely. Smart politicians will use the nomination of the next Supreme Court Justice to drive voter turnout. It’s important. Justices are appointed for life and will make decisions for decades.

How much power do the courts have?

A previous US President created law with ‘the stroke of his own.’ The dreamers act. No law was ever passed by Congress. Legally whatever acts a President creates, another can reverse.

The courts have said no. If the courts like a particular act, then it can’t be reversed.

You are assuming historical precedent will be respected here and they will wait to appoint her replacement. I think that is a losing bet.

Everything is partisan these days. The Democrats already said months ago that if they flipped the Senate and took the Executive it was their intention to increase the number of judges and pack the Supreme Court against its current conservative bias. They also said they would remove the filibuster. This is no longer a Senate that respects traditions, or even cares about unity. It is a war zone filled with divisive, partisan politics, and politicians without shame.

This opening gives the current Republican Senate and Executive the chance to put a new judge in just in time to rule on the chaos that is likely to be the 2020 US election. The challenges from all the mail in ballots are likely make the Florida Bush/Gore debacle in 2000 look like a day at Sunday school by comparison. It will be hard, no doubt, to complete the process in 45 days. It will likely require changing Senate procedures and rules to fast track everything. But I suspect they will do it.

No, the voters are not going to be given the option to choose this judge. Trump will appoint one, and the Senate will make sure they are sitting on the bench to rule on the election mess before the winner takes office. Count on it.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Scalia died before the last election and Mitch McConnell refused to let an Obama appointee go through, saying that the new president should make the appointment, as the death occurred in an election year.

Same predicament now but with political parties reversed.

Yeah, he'll spin it any way he can.

He's fucking ruthless and relentless.........my money is on him getting his way. Calls of hypocrisy be damned.

This is all new, and a bit of shock to those of us who live under the Westminster system
- the basic system of government for most former and current British Commonwealth countries

At the heart of this system is the concept of the separation of powers between the three branches of government:
The Legislature - the Parliament, which makes the law.
The Executive: the Governor, Prime Minister/Premier, Ministers, departments and agencies, which implement the law.
The Judiciary: the courts, which interpret and apply the law.

Hence the politicisation of the Judiciary just does not play out anything like it does it does in USA.

This has the advantage of the citizenry having a pretty high level of faith in the judiciary - they have reason to believe proceedings will be fair, overseen by judges that are NOT chosen for their political allegiances, ideological leanings or to win the next election.

Similar too for electing judges - also unthinkable under the westminster system. Popularity and posturing are not the playthings of judges. They are supposed to be removed from all that.

Of course some politics, and personal political prejudices, do come into play. But i don't think it could seriously be argued that in this system the judiciary is as politicised to any where near the degree that it is in the USA.

A sincere and respectful question - What do our american friends (and allies) see as the advantage of their system of appointing the judiciary according to such obviously partisan practices?