2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton Has No Idea How the Supreme Court Works
It is really disturbing that someone who is a Yale trained lawyer and has been in public office in one shape or form since the 1980's has no idea how the Supreme Court works.
Hillary Clinton told a group of her top fundraisers Thursday that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court will have to share her belief that the court's 2010 Citizens United decision must be overturned, according to people who heard her remarks.
Clinton's emphatic opposition to the ruling, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on independent political activity, garnered the strongest applause of the afternoon from the more than 200 party financiers gathered in Brooklyn for a closed-door briefing from the Democratic candidate and her senior aides, according to some of those present.
"She got major applause when she said would not name anybody to the Supreme Court unless she has assurances that they would overturn" the decision, said one attendee, who, like others, requested anonymity to describe the private session.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/05/14/hillary-clintons-litmus-test-for-supreme-court-nominees-a-pledge-to-overturn-citizens-united/
What a nice sentiment for the liberal base. The problem with these comments, however, are that they either reflect a profound misunderstanding of how the Supreme Court works (which is tragic given her Yale law degree) or it reveals that Clinton is not above intentionally spouting claptrap.
JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)both are totally ignorant or spouting claptrap, eh?!
Pay attention to that whooshing sound above your head.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Gotta be the funniest post today.
But it's early.
Proserpina
(2,352 posts)That there's a theory about the Supreme Court, and then, there's the Reality.
We saw this with Bork. We saw this with that dippy woman...Harriet Miers.
The Nixon twins: Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.
The President can nominate a ham sandwich if he wants, but Congress gets the say....
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)in Slate, for saying the exact same thing.
JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)onenote
(42,748 posts)is reflected in the comments of Clinton (and Sanders) indicating they want to see CU overturned?
TM99
(8,352 posts)onenote
(42,748 posts)Although Bernie (whom I support) probably shouldn't have said overturning CU would be one of the first decisions of any SCOTUS justice he nominated. Obviously, that's just hyperbole (not a misunderstanding of how the court works).
TM99
(8,352 posts)"Update: Sanders campaign spokeswoman Symone Sanders sent the following note explaining the tweet: "That tweet was worded oddly. The senator often speaks about appointing justices that believe in overturning citizens united and who would do so if the opportunity arose. That is what this was referring to.""
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/01/bernie-sanders-promise-citizens-united-supreme-court
Gothmog
(145,489 posts)Sanders made some stupid statements about revisiting the Citizens United case which can not be done. What can be done is to accept new cases where the effects of Citizens United could be limited. The SCOTUS has not reverse Roe v. Wade but has limited that opinion a great deal over the years. On another board, I counted a dozen or so cases that were sent to the SCOTUS but denied cert where Citizens United could have been limited or ideally overturned.
I see one or two cases a month on Prof. Hasen's blog that could be suitable vehicles for the SCOTUS to revisit or limit Citizens
Hillary Clinton has promised to only appoint SCOTUS justices who will vote to overturn Citizens United http://thevotingnews.com/the-future-of-campaign-finance-rests-with-the-next-supreme-court-appointments-lawrence-nordenthe-atlantic/
Today, super PACs enable the very wealthiest to spend unlimited amounts on campaigns. Its hard to remember that they didnt even exist before 2010. That year, the top 100 donors spent less than one third as much as the total contributions of all small donors to federal candidates. By 2014, that drastically changed. The top 100 super PAC donors spent almost as much as the combined total contributed to candidates by all small donors.
Super PACs are a legacy of the Roberts Courts 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case. At the heart of that ruling was the assumption that independent election spending does not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. Three months later, in SpeechNow, a lower court made the logical inference that if independent spending does not corrupt, there is no reason to limit contributions to independent spending groups. Thus independent-expenditure-only PACs, soon to be called super PACs, were born.
Could super PACs be banned if Citizens United and SpeechNow were reversed? In a word, yes. In fact, the first court to hear SpeechNow held to what had been the standard before Citizens United, noting that the Supreme Court ha[d] never held that, by definition, independent expenditures pose no threat of corruption, and that a groups legal independence does not prevent it from forming close ties with officeholders that could lead to corruption. If a new Court were to accept this reasoning, it could restore the ban on super PACs by upholding the $5,000 limit on donations to political committees; Congress or the Federal Election Commission (FEC) could do the same if the Court overruled Citizens United.
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)by a Clinton supporter claiming that Sanders "didn't know how the Supreme Court works". No one really thinks she doesn't know how the Court works, it's just pointing out the stupidity of the other post.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)HassleCat
(6,409 posts)Litmus tests are not allowed, and justices are not bound by any promises. I guess she means she would nominate judges whose records show, conclusively, they would overturn Citizens United. The problem with that, of course, is she would be nominating very progressive judges, and they would face enormous opposition in the Senate. So, it's probably an empty promise for two reasons: (1) She doesn't want to nominate judges who are that progressive, and (2) she knows the Senate would block the effort. It's just campaign rhetoric.
dsc
(52,166 posts)is so awful. Can't imagine having another one of those on the court.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)BTW, all it would take for Citizens United to be reversed is for a litigant who has been injured by it to challenge it, four members of SCOTUS agree to hear it, and then five vote to overturn it.
JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)dae
(3,396 posts)MariaThinks
(2,495 posts)and then the approval process begins. The nomination, I think, allows the President, a lot of influence in the makeup of who gets nominated.
but I guess the fact that Obama's appointees are leftish while bush's appointees are generally asswipes is just coincidence.
That sound that is made when the point flies over someone's head.
But please do go on. You were saying about the Supreme Court and nominations. And that it is important to have a Democrat like Sanders instead of a Republican like Trump? Do please go on.
MariaThinks
(2,495 posts)Response to MariaThinks (Reply #19)
Post removed
Gothmog
(145,489 posts)I am not sure that you understand how the SCOTUS works.
Thank you for the laughs
Gothmog
(145,489 posts)I am living with the consequences of Nader's stupidity in Texas due to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. I am not comfortable supporting Sanders because he is not viable in the general election and I do not want the GOP to control the SCOTUS for the next generation.
Gothmog
(145,489 posts)Why do you think that the court would not be able to reverse or limit this decision with a new court makeup. Last term there were ten or fifteen cases that were sent to the SCOTUS that involved aspects of Citizens United that the SCOTUS could accept cert on.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Now you have some Hillary supporters that agree that Bernie didn't say that because he doesn't understand. He said it because it's very difficult to explain a very long process of overturning a law via the Supreme Court in a tweet.