help me DU, you're my only hope. re: a con supreme court

[AmandaRuth]

hello DU, lurk always - post very very seldom .

I've been thinking quite a bit about the coming conservative supreme court, and what might happen in the next 20 years. I know we are going to hear a lot about choice and health care, but I am wondering about what other damage a con court can do, as is, with 9 supremes. I'm thinking min wage laws, other fair employment laws, environmental issues, tenant rights, and so on.

Personally, I think we are going to see changes unimaginable even 5 years ago, and i am convinced the court will wiggle around the "let the states decide" and find a way to nationalize every decision. Also, as soon as the cons take the court, I am sure these issues will be presented and pushed up the courts. The right plays like that.

I don't see a forum here on DU dedicated to the SC, can anyone direct me to a site where such things are being discussed? I really want to know what my daughter can expect as she lives her life. Also, I might be overly paranoid and I need to know if that is true as well. Thanks, any response is very much appreciated.

[Claustrum]

1. Most immediately, any type of mask mandate or COVID related restrictions.

Then LGBT protections, abortion, corporation limitations, etc.

[Celerity]

2. unless we expand the court, the damage is going to be mind-numbing

Red state AG's will flood the already-stacked lower federal courts with 1000+ test cases attacking all civil rights gains since Brown v Board in 1954, including Brown itself I fear.

In their gun-sights:

Gender protections
Racial protections
LGBTQ+ protections
Worker protections
Environmental protections
Further erosion of voting rights
Gun control
Abortion
Union rights (other than the organised crime syndicates known as police unions(
Consumer protections, including a massive erosion of debt protections (with privatised, for-profit debtor prisons well within the realm of possibility)
Banking, equities, and commodity markets oversight and financial protections
Privacy protections
Immigrant protections
Freedom FROM RW religion overall whilst allowing attacks and hate and discrimination against all other non RW Christian and non RW Jewish religious entities
Public education
The real press will be handcuffed and persecuted, whilst the RW agitprop will be allowed to flourish and gaslight as a quasi state organ for the Rethugs
The worst of RW-friendly social media will be protected, whilst the rest is kneecapped


They will further flow massive systemic power to the corporations, the for-profit predatory private heath care and pharma complex, the mega-banks, the oligarchs, the RW in general, the radical fundie Christians, the Republican Party, the white nationalists/neo nazis, homophobes, the climate denialists and all other assorted anti-science crackpots.

They will viciously take down Democratic legislation no matter how valid, and will allow most all RW Rethug power grabs to stand, no matter how unconstitutional.

Your are correct, they will try and nationalise it. And it will get even worse if they somehow take it to 7-2 or even 8-1 (if Sotomayor's chronic Type-1 diabetes does her in) hard RW, plus refresh the crazed/bitter minstrel show that is the RWer Thomas with a newer model of thug.

They will, at the end of the day, careen the nation towards cold (and eventually hot) civil war and/or a dissolution of the union. The time-frame for all that is halved if Trump somehow steals the election and the Rethugs hold the Senate.

I am sure I have left a lot out that will also be attacked and ripped to shreds.

[dixiechiken1]

3. Add to the list: further erosion of voting rights

[Celerity]

4. done

[AmandaRuth]

8. thanks

it is worse than I thought. I appreciate your response, no matter how depressing. also, i wish i could 'rec a response to the greatest page. Rump and flyboy are temp, this stuff will be forever

[Bettie]

9. All of these are important, but there is another, non-political reason to expand the court

The court hears a very small number of cases annually.

So, to give more capacity for hearing cases, the court should be expanded, to allow for three randomly chosen panels (of 7 or 9) to be running at one time.

Also, with that many justices and random panels for cases, it is WAY harder to tailor a case to appeal to one or two justices.

Finally, a SCOTUS that large will tend toward moderation, going neither far left or far right.

But, in any case, the court NEEDS to be expanded and if we're going to do it, we should aim high.

[brooklynite]

5. "I really want to know what my daughter can expect"

You don't know. I don't know. Nobody here knows. All they can do is engage in speculation.

[AmandaRuth]

7. right

that's why I am here, I would like t speculate what the changes might be.

[lastlib]

6. I think there is a remedy, if Congress has the cojones for it....

...and WITHOUT expanding SCOTUS.

Establish a National Court of Appeals. (Pack it with 25 good young progressive judges.) ALL appeals from lower courts go here.

Strip the Supreme Court of all appellate jurisdiction. (Yes, Congress can do this.) Leave it with only its constitutional original jurisdiction. All appeals go to the National Court of Appeals.

Clarence PubicHair can take all the naps he wants and play with his "long-dong silver" to his little heart's content, and BeerBoy Kavanaughty can spend the rest of his career hung over. And the rest of the country gets justice. Problem solved.

[Bettie]

10. That is an awesome idea

Seriously, that would solve a lot of problems and take a lot of cases out of the SCOTUS agenda.