Pack the Courts
Every so often, usually when a SCOTUS justice dies, the phrase “packing the courts” gets tossed around. In essence, this means that whatever political party is in power will add justices to the court to overturn a perceived imbalance in the liberal or conservative leanings of the currently appointed justices. So, for example, if you want to overturn Roe v. Wade, you could appoint an extremist judge that will give you the result you want on abortion. Or, if you wanted to get rid of the ACA (aka Obamacare) and haven’t been able to do it for more than a decade legislatively, then you could appoint someone who has been outspoken on the dubious legality of it, ensuring that when a case was to be presented to SCOTUS on that topic, you would know how they would vote.
What is happening now with Amy Coney Barrett is not court-packing. It’s utterly hypocritical and disgraceful. But it’s also perfectly legal. Republicans, many of whom are on the record criticizing the exact thing they are doing (see video below), are trying to justify their actions by twisting the circumstances of 2016 into something ludicrous. Their stance is so ridiculous that by the end of the week, we’ll be hearing about how it’s OK to appoint a justice IN THE MIDDLE OF VOTING, so long as the moon is full and El Nino is out of season. This is nothing new from the party of “small government” and “conservative policies” that has overseen a tremendous overreach by the Executive branch and a massively inflating national debt.
The Republican party has always been about one thing for as long as I’ve been aware and involved in politics: raw, naked power. Why? Because they do not represent the majority of Americans. They haven’t legitimately won the popular vote in a national election since I could vote. How do you stay in power when the majority of the people you “represent” have rejected your ideas? You lie, cheat, and steal as much as you can.
The outdated and silly Electoral College gives a massive advantage to the GOP. I tried explaining how it works this past weekend to my ten-year-old niece and she could easily see the injustice in the system. Even a child can understand how it robs people of their democratic voice. But to hear Republicans talk about it, our nation would crumble without it. They are opposed to democracy. Senator Mike Lee says it out loud.
They have no interest in a democracy because that would mean a lot of them would lose their jobs, and along with it, power. Their backward and wrong policies have failed Americans for decades. Not all Americans, mind you. The rich are doing great under GOP rule. The wealth gap between the top and bottom of this nation has never been larger. And one way to maintain power aside from gerrymandering, voter suppression, and outright corruption, is to ensure that the last line of defense in our democracy is packed with people who are evil as you.
Yeah, I said it. Republicans are evil people. The things they support are wicked and hateful. Amy Coney Barrett is the perfect poster child for their sadistic ways. She’s a woman who supports sending women back 150 years. Not for her, mind you. She has largely benefited from the glass ceilings that were shattered by liberal, democratic women. She has a career because a liberal woman deigned to demand one. She has an interracial family because liberal couples demanded the right to do so. Do you think Amy will be the one sitting at a lunch counter with her black kids as white supremacists pour vanilla milkshakes on them? I must have missed her at the last Black Lives Matter march.
Like so many other hypocritical conservative women who have benefited from the bravery of liberal women, she seeks to overturn the progress made and send us back to the “good old days”. Well, I’ve got news for you. You cannot go back to the good old days without sending a lot of people back to the bad old days. That Republicans would seek to fill one such liberal woman’s seat (RGB RIP) with this trash bag of Christian nonsense is disgraceful.
She can buy as many black bodies as she wants to hide behind. I am not moved by white people adopting black children, especially ones from foreign countries. You don’t think there are plenty of American children who need to be adopted by wealthy white families? What is it about white women needing and using black children as accessories? “Civilizing” children from Haiti does not mean you can’t also be racist. The brilliant professor and author Ibram X. Kendi made that clear in a series of tweets that caused a bit of a stir.
It’s worth reading the whole thread before making any judgments. And by the way, if you find your white ass tightening just a bit while reading that and not understand why you feel anxious, it’s because you’re a little racist. No worries, I am too. We all are. I could go on all day long about why Barrett is an evil person and has no business being on the Supreme Court. And yes, her fanatical, extremist religious views are one of the reasons. I wouldn’t put a Taliban on the court for the same reason. Just because we’re used to Christian extremism in America doens’t mean it’s OK or should have anything to do with what happens in government.
Court-packing is not new. It’s been around for as long as our Constitution. Contrary to popular belief, there has not always been nine justices on the court. It started with six, then was reduced to five, and then varied a few other times between a maximum of ten and a low of five. The Constitution itself doesn’t say how many justices there should be. This notion of precedent and tradition is an insidious lie. Congress has the power to add 100 justices if it wanted to. Not that I am saying this is a good idea by any means. 100 might be too many.
But it is clear that the eight we currently have (nine if Satan gets his wish) is woefully insufficient. It’s a simple matter of representation. Where are the Asians? (Hint: there aren’t any!) Where are the black women? (Hint: see previous hint). And this isn’t just a problem at the highest court in the land. Half, THAT’S RIGHT— HALF — of US states have an All-White supreme court. That’s 23 states, including some where black folks make up 20% or more of the population, where minorities are underrepresented. It’s egregious, ugly, and another testament to the power of white supremacy. How are people supposed to believe in and trust a court system that doesn’t feel they are worthy of serving on it? And as far as women are concerned, you best be white if you want a chance at any level of the court system. It’s no wonder that whenever SCOTUS hears a case that’s about race, they rarely mention it. Do you think that has something to do with it being a body that was the exclusive domain of white men for the majority of our history? I wonder…
To be clear, I do not approve of court-packing to achieve a political end. The courts should be kept as far away as possible from political in-fighting. This is a bit like saying rain should distance itself from the very clouds it falls from. It’s an impossible but admirable goal to strive towards. But I do believe in using it to either increase representation or to correct an injustice.
Merrick Garland should be on the court right now and Brett Kavanaugh should be tossing back cold ones with Spunky while they pretend to rape women. I’m not going to get into all that now because it’s a distraction from the needed remedies available to us. He’s there and he’s going to be there for a while. Most likely he’ll be joined by fellow MAGA sycophant Barrett. We have to accept that this is the system we have in place. And as a wise woman once said, “you’re your problem, Annie, and you’re also your solution.”
So let’s turn those frowns upsidedown and get to work. The Constitution allows — and demands — that we fix this using every tool available. Let’s talk strategy:
Vote. Vote. Vote. To make any real changes we need to have the votes to do so. Take back the Presidency, keep the House, and make the Senate blue.
Get rid of the filibuster. Yeah, this could come back to bite us in the ass, but we’ve had decades of nothing being done largely because of this procedural hiccup. Republicans have lost America. They are not popular and many of their ideas aren’t popular. Progressive, liberal ideas are. If they somehow regain power and they want to use it to turn us into a Puritanical Taliban-light Christian Theocracy — let them. Americans will reject it as soon as they get the chance. We know this because they have for the past two decades.
Give representation to all Americans. Yes, this means making DC a state along with Puerto Rico (if they want). Republicans fear democracy because they know that if everyone got a say, they’d be out of office faster than they can strip abortion rights from women.
Add a few justices to the courts. I mean all of them. Not just SCOTUS. Minorities are woefully underrepresented at just about every level of the court system. If white people won’t cede their power in this arena, then we must take it from them, the same way they got it in the first place. Get a couple of black women on the court. Get a gay man and a lesbian. Get some Asians on there too. How about a Muslim or two? It’s sad the only black person on the court is the most Uncle Tom mfer going.
Make a few Constitutional amendments specifically mandating that the court be reflective of the current population. This isn’t hard. We already have the data from the Census. When an opening pops up, it must be filled according to who needs representation. I’d also have an age limit. I have zero confidence that the justices currently serving have any idea what life in America is like for the majority of the people. No one over 70 can serve. Sorry, Gramps.
During confirmation hearings, I would make it mandatory that the presumptive justices give actual opinions on cases they might face. Their biases are there whether we know about them or not. We might as well find out from the jump. This has to be literally the only job interview in which you cannot ask the prospective employee what they would do in the position they are interviewing for.
Lastly, I would make all their deliberations about cases to be public record. There should be cameras and recording equipment throughout every case. We have a right to know what they talk about and what rationales go into their decisions. Reading dissents isn’t enough. Privacy is for rats. We cannot hold them accountable for the job they do unless we know if they’re actually doing the job.
Yes, it feels dark right now. But there is so much hope. The power lies with us. Our nation can be whatever we want it to be. Their greatest weapon against us is dissolving hope. It only works if we let it. Be strong, fight back, and we can finally become the great nation we have always claimed to be.