Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 191: Hey Now, You're a Lodestar

(+) Yeah! (+)

Get your Pence on
No Gays
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This is a top tier title.
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Goddamn you just keep on delivering

Tag.

Also.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Goddamn you just keep on delivering

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The President told me my migrants want to roll me
They took the sharpest tool from my shed
He was looking kind of dumb grabbing pussies with his thumb
Moved on them like a bitch, or so he said
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Nice.
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Catching up on some of the previous discussion: Cash bail and felon disenfranchisement are indeed abhorrent things.

I think the "official" justification for the former is to ensure a defendant show for trial. But in practice it just causes discrimination by class. Felon disenfranchisement is just a way to enact more discrimination IMO given its disproportionate impact. And also to help the GOP, of course.

Locking the SCOTUS to 9 seats nah. The number has changed before and especially at this moment trying to cap the number of seats is brazenly political. (And also unnecessary, the Dems won't have the guts to expand the court in response to what's happened.)
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SephG: Brazenly Political

I'm actually sort of neutral to locking SCOTUS at 9 because aside from being an odd number I can't think of any particular reason for there to be any particular number of judges, so falling back on the most recent precedent of having 9 for a while seems like a good place to stop and I don't want anyone increasing or decreasing the number as political ploy, only if there's actually a good reason to do it, which I can't think of a reason for (although I'm certainly open to hearing one)

But of course, I can't help but notice that SephG likes the composition of the supreme court right now, and that's interesting timing

Anyway, NEWS~

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1039217735090286592

(WaPo link in the tweet, I just don't feel like chopping that link up to make it work here right now. Too lazy right now. WaPo plz make your links shorter)

Organizers in Michigan got enough signatures to put a $12 minimum wage + paid family leave on the ballot as an initiative. Michigan GOP responds by approving those things. Seems like a good thing, right? Well, here's the catch. By doing this, the GOP can now repeal it with 51% whereas if it had passed as a ballot initiative they would need 75% to repeal. Michigan GOP admitted they did this to have the ability to alter or scrap the proposal. They plan to take up the issues during the lame duck which is before they would take effect.

Article notes it may be open to court challenge if the legislature alters the laws before the end of the session, but even supposing such a challenge succeeds I'm not sure there's a remedy. The election would have passed.
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https://twitter.com/rodimusprime/status/1039358092075524096?s=21

The fact that this is a real interview with a Southerner again proves that satire is dead and will never ever return to this reality

lol. this is literally like that tim and eric sketch about the universe in which tim suddenly stops talking mid-sentence and just stares.
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Oh that wacky bolton
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So hey

My scummy, incompetent governor actually wants to do something right (banning red light cameras).

xp1337 posted...

Catching up on some of the previous discussion: Cash bail and felon disenfranchisement are indeed abhorrent things.

Also agree with both of these just like everybody else. Also fuck the guys in congress that fight to keep these in place.

Jakyl is either a plagiarist or the most painfully underutilized quippy mind of his generation.
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Paratroopa1 posted...

But of course, I can't help but notice that SephG likes the composition of the supreme court right now, and that's interesting timing

That was just a fantasy amendment for me, so I didn't even really consider the current make-up.

Just seems like if a party with a lot of power wanted to pack the court, there would be nothing to stop them. And once they're on, there's no removing the seats until you get another overwhelming majority in Congress. An amendment can prevent all of that.
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TheRock1525 posted...

This is a top tier title.

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HarrietTubgirl posted...

Jakyl is either a plagiarist or the most painfully underutilized quippy mind of his generation.

Be on the lookout for my next political song parody

Kavanaugh ooh na na
He drove the Democrats bananas ooh na na
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https://twitter.com/dougmillsnyt/status/1039502832397963264?s=21

Trump is PUMPED for 9/11!
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Personally, I think all three branches need a general overhaul in terms of selection:

1. Executive: abolish electoral college. The president is supposed to represent the entire country, yet the electoral college gives undue power to midwestern swing states. One person, one vote, would make each state feel important and would give us a president that actually has a mandate.

2. Legislative: fix the terms. Not term LIMITS, although maybe they could be reduced to a maximum of six. But no. I mean fix the terms themselves. Congress is re-elected in full every two years, and a good chunk of that is campaigning for re-election. How can they be expected to represent their constituents when everything has to be so rushed? Up congressional terms to four years, and have them elected alongside the president. The senate, meanwhile, has the opposite problem. Six years is too long to wait to express dissatisfaction, and given the way the senate is chosen (two separate elections that allow one party to field a winning 52-48 candidate two times), the Senate feels increasingly unrepresentative. So reduce each senate term to four years and have both seats up for grabs at once, with the top two vote-getters getting them. This would balance swing states that are weighted JUST enough towards one party or another (and might give third parties a fighting chance.). Also, have those senate races in the off-years, so people have more reason to show up and vote.

3. Judicial: have the justices picked in advance. The court is supposed to be an apolitical check on the other two branches, yet given the current system of selection/approval by the executive and legislative, in inspires ideological court packing. It also inspires situations like Kennedy and RBG, where judges retire when they get a president that will replace them with a similar mindset. So instead, depoliticize the whole affair. In a sign of national unity, the presidential candidates that poll at a certain margin have a meeting and they essentially draft the judges for the next term. This way both sides will have to agree on more moderate voices, and that should prevent activist judges. And if you televise the negotiations on CSPAN or something, then that provides more information to the voters as well, allowing them to see the candidates in a real world situation.
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My ideas for overhauling the legislative and judicial branches are a bit more radical.

Legislative: Abolish the bicameral structure and combine the powers and responsibilities into a new, single chamber. Allot seats to the states based solely on population, with the least populous receiving 3 seats and more populous states receiving proportionately more, with no upper limit on the seats a state can have. During elections, seats are awarded to parties based on proportional share of the vote (thereby making third parties viable!) - so a state with 20 representatives that votes 55% Republican, 40% Democratic, 5% Green would get 11 GOP seats, 8 Dem seats, and 1 Green seat to be filled by whoever the state parties want.

Judicial: This is where the Rube Goldberg shit kicks in:

1) When a seat on the Supreme Court opens up, the president has 1 week to nominate a successor.
2) Congress must give the nominee an up or down vote within 3 weeks of the nomination.
3) If the nominee is voted down, the president has 1 week to nominate another person.
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 until a total of 5 nominees have been voted down.
5) At this point, Congress has 1 week to select one of the 5 voted down nominees to fill the vacancy.

If at any point the president misses a nomination deadline, Congress has 4 weeks to vote on its own choice to fill the vacancy. If Congress misses any deadline, the president's current choice is automatically confirmed. If Congress misses the final deadline, the president can choose from any of the previous nominees and that choice is automatically confirmed. If the president leaves office due to not being elected to another term, they are allowed to complete the full nomination cycle even after leaving office. If the president leaves office for any other reason (impeachment, death, 25th Amendment) the cycle restarts with their successor.

This system is designed to prevent amoral fuckheads like Mitch McConnell from playing bullshit political games with the highest court in the land.
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"filled by whomever the state parties want"

gross

And for the Judicial branch, the president can just nominate five lunatics and Congress is stuck with one of them. The changes suck
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Not_an_Owl posted...

This system is designed to prevent amoral fuckheads like Mitch McConnell from playing bullshit political games with the highest court in the land.

It also seems designed to let amoral fuckheads like Donald Trump bypass the confirmation process to get almost whoever they want on the court by just getting rejected five times.

Not_an_Owl posted...

During elections, seats are awarded to parties based on proportional share of the vote (thereby making third parties viable!) - so a state with 20 representatives that votes 55% Republican, 40% Democratic, 5% Green would get 11 GOP seats, 8 Dem seats, and 1 Green seat to be filled by whoever the state parties want.

I like this idea, except for the part about letting the state parties decide the seats.

Instead, have primaries with ranked voting to decide who gets the seats.

As for judicial, I'd say that Supreme Court seats should NOT be for life. Instead, each justice should get a 10 year term. After that, they can't be a supreme court justice anymore.
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Dancedreamer posted...

Not_an_Owl posted...

During elections, seats are awarded to parties based on proportional share of the vote (thereby making third parties viable!) - so a state with 20 representatives that votes 55% Republican, 40% Democratic, 5% Green would get 11 GOP seats, 8 Dem seats, and 1 Green seat to be filled by whoever the state parties want.

I like this idea, except for the part about letting the state parties decide the seats.

Instead, have primaries with ranked voting to decide who gets the seats.

having ranked vote and proportional representation simultaneously is silly. just have ranked vote (ie none of what he suggested)
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yeah, that sort of system is so completely alien to u.s. voters that i don't think it's possible

hell, the democratic party is explicitly moving in the opposite direction by reducing the power of superdelegates

these ideas are interesting, though!

i will add that i don't think a committee of trump, cruz, rubio, clinton and sanders- all still on the campaign trail- would produce anything useful
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NFUN posted...

having ranked vote and proportional representation simultaneously is silly

Ranked vote would determine the candidates.

Example:

Samantha Smith gets 1st place in the Democratic Nomination process
John Jones gets 2nd
Edward Edwards gets 3rd place

If 1 Dem gets elected, Samantha gets the seat.
If 2, it's Samantha and John
and if it's 3 it's all 3.
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Not_an_Owl posted...

Legislative: Abolish the bicameral structure and combine the powers and responsibilities into a new, single chamber. Allot seats to the states based solely on population

That'd be incredibly difficult even compared to normal amendments. Any change to the Constitution that eliminates equal representation in the Senate needs every state to pass it.
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NFUN posted...

"filled by whomever the state parties want"

gross

This is a valid criticism in that state parties tend to be awful. However, with third parties being more viable there would be incentive to select representatives that align with what the voters actually want, because if your voters aren't happy with your choices this go around they can always vote for another party next time and now you've lost power because you didn't listen to what the people wanted.
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Executive: Abolish the Electoral College. It distorts the electorate and perpetuates a constant undercurrent in the structure of government that values land over people. Popular vote is fine.

Legislature: I waffle on the value of the Senate. It too is a distortion of political power in the same way the Electoral College is. It's also arguably no longer even serving its "intended" original purpose ever since direct election of Senators became a thing. Putting the Senate aside, 100% expand the House by repealing the Reapportionment act. Use the Wyoming Rule in its stead. Terms are probably fine. The solution to the campaigning thing would largely be mitigated by public financing of elections. No to term limits. Oh and have computers draw districts to eliminate gerrymandering. Failing that, nonpartisan commissions. But seriously just get computers to do it. (I mean yes there's the issue of making sure the computer isn't programmed to gerrymander but y'know)

Judiciary: This is the tough one. I don't know what you do here. Maybe invert the process somewhat and make it so that rather than confirming nominees, the Senate/Legislature instead has the power - if it so chooses - to veto them? Whether this is set at 60% or 2/3 or whatever can be up to debate.
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Reg posted...

It also seems designed to let amoral fuckheads like Donald Trump bypass the confirmation process to get almost whoever they want on the court by just getting rejected five times.

Unless you can think of a system that prevents voters from electing amoral fuckheads I don't think there are very many more safeguards that can be built into the process.
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I feel like Jakyl is wasting his talents here.
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Reg posted...

It also seems designed to let amoral fuckheads like Donald Trump bypass the confirmation process to get almost whoever they want on the court by just getting rejected five times.

This is why we need term limits for SCOTUS justices.

I mean in a worst case scenario, Trump (or Obama for Republicans who get off on making people suffer) could pick 5 or 6 Supreme Court justices, and have them on the court for 30-40 years.
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Dancedreamer posted...

As for judicial, I'd say that Supreme Court seats should NOT be for life. Instead, each justice should get a 10 year term. After that, they can't be a supreme court justice anymore.

Life terms do a lot to prevent Justices from being beholden to anyone else (whether voters for a future office, or one of the parties in a case who could potentially offer them a lucrative job).

Also with 10 year terms you'd often have Supreme courts that are split like 7-2 or 8-1 R-D or vice versa.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Life terms do a lot to prevent Justices from being beholden to anyone else (whether voters for a future office, or one of the parties in a case who could potentially offer them a lucrative job).

Nothing stops that now. Sure, they have a lifetime sentence. But they can retire anytime they like.
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Term limits for SCOTUS is another thing I waffle on. On one hand, like nobody else does lifetime appointments. On the other, I get the whole "makes it harder to pressure them." On the third hand, I dunno is it really working?

If you do give them term limits though, it pretty much has to be 18 years just so you can have it rotate every 2 years.
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I mean imagine if all 7 supreme court justices died tomorrow.

Then Trump got to nominate 7, and put them all on the court. And they're all in their 40's. Meaning for 40 years his supreme court picks will be on the because he was 'lucky' enough to be President when the 7 Supreme Court Justices suffered heart attacks after meeting with a mysterious Dr. Ivanov who's accent sounds vaguely Russian.
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Can you imagine if he replaced a liberal justice. Lmfao
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Supreme Court term limits would politicize the court even more than it already is. We saw it with Garland/Gorsuch. Theres an open spot, so better make the campaign all about which party gets to fill it. Itd just be that, but with guarantees of judicial appointments hanging in the balance.
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Espeon posted...

Supreme Court term limits would politicize the court even more than it already is. We saw it with Garland/Gorsuch. Theres an open spot, so better make the campaign all about which party gets to fill it. Itd just be that, but with guarantees of judicial appointments hanging in the balance.

That ship has sailed.

Even if it's not guaranteed it's generally safe to assume a President will get at least one pick. And that's without counting the many, many picks for the lower courts. I mean, you could argue the inverse and say that the guaranteed nature eliminates complacency since you know it's at stake.
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Lifetime appointments being the cure to politicizing the court has long been a debunked myth.
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If anything, lifetime appointments makes it more political because getting a supreme court justice for 30+ years is pretty appealing.
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I think BOTH systems are bad. Thats why I made my suggestion that everyone ignored. Not only would it depoliticize the court, but it would also have the added benefit of preventing a Kavanaugh situation where the president can unilaterally nominate someone who looks completely incompetent, and get them confirmed because his party controls the Senate.
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I think 10 year terms like the FBI director would be ideal

It more or less guarantees each Justice be replaced by a president of the opposite party that appointed them short of some FDR/Reagan dominance.
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The judicial branch is less political than the other branches (conceding that its a low bar). Even on the Supreme Court (which pretty much only takes the hard cases) every pair of justices voted the same way over 50% of the time last year.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

I feel like Jakyl is wasting his talents here.

he regularly engages sephyg and ulti, so certainly
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...holy shit
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XIII_rocks posted...

...holy shit

What happened?
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Ok so everyone knows about his

Happy 9/11 even to the haters and losers tweet, but I just found out that this shit is real:

https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/330359969813770242

@realDonaldTrump
Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name F**kface Von Clownstick like they are so original & like no one else is doing it...
11:35 AM May 3, 2013

Lmaooo
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ok so everyone knows about his

Happy 9/11 even to the haters and losers tweet, but I just found out that this shit is real:

https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/330359969813770242

@realDonaldTrump
Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name F**kface Von Clownstick like they are so original & like no one else is doing it...
11:35 AM May 3, 2013

Lmaooo

Our president is so well mannered and thick skinned.

He aint a little bitch or anything...