It's a dark day in America when the Editorial Board of the New York Times feels compelled to tell people to vote because of the dangerous ideologues on our Supreme Court and the likelihood that for the next generation, yes, that long a time, the Constitutional protections guaranteed to minorities are at serious risk.
Each day delivers a new blow to our democracy.
It is painful to witness.
20
Kennedy was elected over Nixon when liberal was good and popular. Goldwater was defeated by Johnson by a landslide when conservatism was not popular. Reagan defeated Carter when liberal was bad and conservative was popular. The liberal programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and most health and safety laws were still popular. Even union membership was not voluntarily abandoned. But politicians opposed to all were more popular than those who supported them. Why? Look at what these politicians used to describe what was to bad about liberal policies. Welfare cheaters, leniency towards criminals, tax money wasted on misuses and poor practices, and subsidizing laziness. Liberals were giving their money to people who did not deserve it. This was never a complaint heard in 1960 except from a small minority of conservatives. What changed?
3
Here! Here! Everyone get out and vote! Tell friends and family to vote! Get someone to register to vote! Give a ride to the polls to those that need it to vote.
This is the most important election that may occur for our generation and future generations!
Thank you New York Times for telling us that already do, and for those on the fence TO VOTE!!!
5
I give up. I think things are too far gone to even care.
10
well written editorial. It is very depressing that justices, who are supposed to be learned, vote in such a politically partition way; reflecting, in most cases, the views of the president who nominated them. McConell comes across as a very unprincipled senator.
4
It is sadly apparent that in choosing pre/post election for his resignation Kennedy made it clear which verdicts he influenced he wished to see endure. His legacy will not be Equality and Women's rights, but "Citizen's" united and the like. For shame.
5
Can't a Democratic house, senate and President enlarge the size of the Supreme Court and add a few liberal Justices? The GOP sure shaped America to match their needs. If possible, Democrats need to be equally ruthless and self serving.
3
FORTY-EIGHT PERCENT of U.S. eligible voters routinely sit out elections. THEY, and no one else, are responsible for the shame of our nation.
7
Sorry to put in a harsh word for Justice Kennedy, but i feel he timed it so conservatives could get this seat. He easily could've, and still can wait the extra three month's for the election's instead of causing this uproar. I am deeply suspicious. Conservatives are cunning, smart and evil at this point and i think he's joined their ranks. Those folks don't play fair and i'm up to here with it.
Time for a fight, not a retreat.
This worst decision of his tenure could keep our country divided for generation's. Way to go Kennedy. Your legacy is in the Republican trash bin.
7
Watch for Chief Justice Roberts to become the new Anthony Kennedy, regardless who Mr. Trump nominates.
3
And so the NYTimes editorial board has advised ( ordered ) us to vote.
I am advising (ordering) the members of the NYTimes editorial board to man the phones and drive little old ladies to the polls on election day.
That will have a larger effect than going on and on and on about the importance of voting. If truth, getting our sorry you know whats down to the polls isn't really much of a stretch. Yet , so many will pat themselves on the pack, smugly display their " I voted' stamp and proudly believe - "I'v e done my part."
If all one does on election day is vote, as the Times has ordered, one will NOT have done one's part, no mattered how gratifying the approval of the NYTimes editorial board may be.
1
Yup I am scared. Fell like it is similar to the end of Ancient Rome's Senate and Republic .Is Trump another Caesar or Augustus.
5
Ironic that a president presently under investigation by the FBI can even nominate a Supreme Court Justice. Ain't America great...
5
swingleft.org
This is the only way to take the country back.
4
Voting wont change the SCOTUS nominee.
Trump has promised that he will nominate someone committed to reversing Roe v Wade. Normally, even if they want nominees to find for or against some issue, Presidents will not stipulate such a thing. Nominees are not supposed to prejudge any future cases they are to review. If they cannot approach a case able to base their judgment on the merits, they are supposed to recuse themselves. As we all know Trump considers recusals a personal betrayal. So this promises to be a news worthy moment. Will Trump’s nominee actually confirm any intention to reverse Roe v Wade during confirmation hearings?
1
It's disappointing that this editorial does not distinguish between the hyper partisan tactics of the modern Republican party and ordinary policy issues about which reasonable people disagree. It was cynical for the senate to do away with the Supreme Court filibuster. It was unconstitutional to deny Merrick Garland a hearing. But a conservative leaning court does not guarantee an unjust ruling any more than a liberal court guarantees a just one. Seeing this nomination as a lost cause to stack the court with people who "think like me" commits the same error as ultra-conservative ideologues. Fortunately, as Justice Gorsuch has already shown, a justice nominated by a divisive president and confirmed by a partisan senate can still produce nuanced and fair opinions, as in Sessions v. Dimaya and Carpenter v. United States. And as history has shown, justices have a life of their own, evolving during their time on the court. There are lots of things to be pessimistic about right now, but I don't think this is one of them.
2
I"m sorry, but you woukd think wrong. Has Alito or Thomas changed? No. Justices, especially the ultra conservative ones, dont moderate their views. they're ideologicallt entrenched to see things a certain way and trfuse to allow for varying viewpoints. And please dont say its the same on the left, its simpky not true. Ginsberg, Kagan and Sotomayor ate much more flexible in their thi king and willing to look at societal benefits rather than the WIIFME mentality of the right
1
Maybe if the Democrats can take control of House, Senate and Whitehouse, expand the court to place more moderate justices. No easy task though.
4
It all sounds so apple pie and Chevrolet, too good to be true.
It is.
For the vast majority of the country, voting is an empty exercise because legislative maps and districts drawn by incumbents aren't competitive. In presidential races, it does no good for someone in Illinois to vote Republican, or for someone in Utah to vote Democratic, because, thanks to the Electoral College, their votes won't count.
Face it, NYT: There are more of them than there are of us, at least when and where it counts, and voting is an exercise in futility. Change, if it is to come, is going to have to come from within the Republican Party. Democrats couldn't win elections for dogcatchers.
5
Yes everyone needs to vote and hopefully we'll get new leadership for the Dems. Pelosi may have been effective but she needs to step aside along with older leadership for new blood to help move the party forward. If this shows us anything it's how short sighted and how poorly the party has been managed for years. The GOP was laser focused. The Dems not so much.
6
move us forward.
Hey guys... it’s a good idea but who reads your editorials ? Not many people other then the choir.
2
I read them! For laughs.
3
White women wanted this. Just what did they want?
8
Too late now - the time to vote was in '16. Now that the Supreme Court in control of the fascists, voting is moot. Good bye U.S., glad to have known you when...
9
Do you ever pause for a moment to reflect on how much you are contributing to the violence and aggression now common among leftists with your over-the-top rhetoric? Good heavens: Roe v Wade overturned! Racial quotas at public universities under siege? If Roe was overturned states could, and would, still permit abortion, albeit some with common sense restrictions. Quotas have not made campuses more welcoming, but they have most assuredly hurt high performing students of Asian descent. A more conservative court will right a ship that is clearly listing left.
6
Yes please go out and vote. Change the laws through your elected representatives instead trying to force your views on others through the court system. The negation of the travel ban and other court imposed rules would have had more legs if Congress itself had legislated it instead of some lawyers judge shopping for the most liberal jurisdiction they could find.
1
This man deserves stark criticism for his last acts on the Supreme Court. He sided with the immoral and unjust. He is retiring at this exact historica instant when the U.S. democracy and Constitution are under threat. Perhaps he has an illness, undiagnosed or private, but otherwise his retirement is a cowardly act.
Many ordinary Americans would love to retire, but they keep working.
8
Nonsense. The man is 81 years old; the VAST majority of Americans retire long before 81. He's entitled to retire after having already provided distinguished service for decades.
2
There is no excuse for any American not voting. My family has a history of fleeing not only fascism and the nazis, but also the communists. Trump has fascist instincts although he remains with in the historical American tradition of racism, prejudice, contempt for due process /civil liberties and paranoid politics. Small comfort as no one can be sure where this exercise in his majesty the baby will take us. Judge Kennedy for all his faults was a rare voice of moderate thinking across the political aisles. We are all dangerously adrift now.
3
I am going to vote. Republican, because the congressional candidate in my district is a far left radical like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Democrat party is setting up its own demise.
9
Well, "far left radicals" as you call them have your interests at heart, not those of some corporation that wants to lower your wage, limit your rights and pollute your drinking water.
But republicans seem to vote against their own interests all the time.
7
And they traded a bankable House tactician next year for a freshman community organizer of the same party!
2
kennedy has thrown the US under the bus. he certainly could have waited for the results of elections in november to make his retirement known. indeed his departure announcement coming at the end of the session when there was little more for him to do until the next session starts makes one wonder if he was paid off. the fbi should look into whether or not he has had a sudden increase in his wealth. sure he might argue that the a full bench needs to be set before the next session, but the court did just fine while the republicans raped obama of his choice for a scalia replacement. the tone of his announcement critical of the current administration is nothing more than gibberish word salad. if he really believed what he said he would have given voters an opportunity to vote and move the county in a different direction. of course as old as he is he wont have to live with his betrayal. when history evaluates your legacy your decision to announce your retirement at this strategic moment will surely erase any good he might have done during his tenure.
4
Protections for the common man.... what a quaint thought. Long gone, with the wind..
1
Wow. I wonder if there is insurance against exploding heads if anything happens to RBG in the next year or two.
4
In this editorial the NYT preaches to the choir. The choir is made up of Times readers who will give approving nods as they read this editorial. The choir will show up at the polls in November.
The problem the democrats have is they need more than the denizens of the Upper West Side, Malibu and college towns to turn out.
The young and minority voters who showed up at the polls for Obama but didn’t for Hillary won’t be reading this editorial. Those democrats aren’t paying much attention to current politics and certainly aren't concerned about topics as abstract and distant as the make up of next year’s Supreme Court. The problem for the democrats is how to motivate them when abstractions just won’t do it. Maybe more Obamaphones?
7
Son of Liberty,
What the Democrats need are more candidates like the truly progress Ocasio-Cortez and fewer centrist, corporate, big money obligated, establishment, machine Democrats like Crowley.
We have our own Ocasio-Cortez here in Idaho with Paulette Jordan, Democratic candidate for governor. The Democratic establishment wasn't too excited about her winning, but the grass-roots is. We, the grass-roots, need to work to see she's elected. Ocasio-Cortez is our leading example of how to do that.
3
Citizens United says it all. Goodbye. Goodbye.
5
Here's the point for those who are offended by "just show up and vote": you may not get to vote for your perfect candidate or your perfect political party. And you may bemoan the fact that our party system is inadequate, corrupt, or however you prefer to label it. But the 2-party system is what we have at this very important moment, and you have one of two choices. In order to bring this horrific pendulum swing of a situation back towards our values, we must get a majority in the house and/or the senate. The time to change the system, if you don't like it, is NOT when we're totally powerless and have no ability to make change. It's the numbers, stupid (not the economy, as the saying goes). Too bad some didn't consider that in 2016.
13
Hear! Hear!
3
It is a sad fact when the once-great Democratic Party mourns the loss of a Republican Justice nominated by Ronald Reagan...What does this mean?
It means, ahem, that the Democratic Party means nothing anymore...
It is a party in decline. Heck, it's a party without any point other than its hatred for Trump.
Its options:
Socialism! The Lovely and bright young Marxist from the Bronx! Yeah!
Or---wait a minute, there must be something....
6
Kennedy may have been appointed by Reagan, but he wasn't Reagan's first choice. That was Robert Bork, the ideological hero of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch. The Senate of the day, recognising that the judicial philosophy of Originalism was intellectually bankrupt and potentially dangerous, rejected Bork's nomination.
Douglas Ginsburg was the second name that was floated-up, but he had admitted to using marijuana (the unspeakable horror!), and was rejected.
Kennedy was then sent for a Senate grilling. He was a good candidate - not only had he abstained from the demon weed, but he was a caselaw-and-precedent kind of guy, who didn't have the deluded notion that he could use the Founding Fathers as ventriloquist dummies from the Bench.
2
Looking forward to a Supreme Court that will protect the dignity of all human beings including those unborn.
2
There is so little justification for radical progressive ideas that any time they lose a voice, or even the muted voice that Justice Kennedy was, the radicals promoting them go to war against the culture that made America the world-wide success that it is.
Yet, these same people were stupid enough to assume that a radicalized career criminal like Hillary Clinton would be elected president of any western democracy. Next time, don't run the person with ''my decisions are all on sale now!'' imprinted on their soul.
3
No reason the next real president and a properly constituted congress cannot EXPAND the court by the seats necessary to undo any damage caused by the so-called president and his thuggy buds in KKKongress.
5
True. The constitution does not specify any upper or lower limit on the size of the Supreme Court. Current legislation defines the Court as having nine justices, including one Chief Justice, with a quorum of six.
3
It is technically accurate that Citizens United freed the political activities of corporations and labor unions equally, as commentaries such as this always point out. But as a practical matter — and especially with the new verdict in Janus — labor unions are in a far weaker position politically than corporations, which just had their political war chests immeasurably enriched by the tax cut bill, and who generally are not accountable to shareholders for their political activities.
5
The democrats in Congress didn't fight hard for Merrick Garland because they assumed Hillary would win the election and that she would appoint a suitable Supreme Court Judge. Even though James Comey gave us a play-by-play accounting of the FBI's investigation into Hillary's emails (right up to the actual election), he didn't disclose the ongoing FBI investigation into Trump's collusion with Russia (or worse) because Comey assumed Hillary would win the election. Are we now finally through assuming that everything will turn out okay and that we don't have to take any action to save our country stop the GOP's aggression? All hands on deck!
5
As Bruce Rozenblit said, our nation is falling apart. I believe it is time to help hasten the breakup of this outdated Union. It was designed to and has always favored small, backwards states with disproportionately uneducated populations. We need to start marching on our governments -- at the state level -- to demand that blue states consider leaving the Union and forming our own progressive nation, where the rights of all are honored and where concern over the stewardship of the earth is a shared value. Leave the bigots behind as we form our Progressive States of America and move forward into the future unshackled from them.
4
The the Republicans already stole one seat on the Supreme Court. Democrats should make it very clear that if the Republicans now seat someone more right-wing than Kennedy, then the Democrats *will* pack the Court with two more liberal justices as soon as they have control of the presidency and the Senate. Which with any luck will be in 2020.
No matter what happens in the mid terms or to Donald Trump the right wing Republicans won. The conservative judiciary is the biggest prize and they already won it for the next generation.
6
A parable about voting for Republicans and centrists Democrats:
A starving man, needing 2000 calories a day and getting none, asks 2 politicians, a Republican and centrist Democrat for help.
The Republican's response: My 1st obligation is to big corporations. That leaves nothing for you. It's your own fault you're starving.
The centrist Democrat's response: My 1st obligation is to big corporations. But, after that, I might be able to give you 1000 calories a day. And remember to vote for the lesser of 2 evils.
The result either way: The starving man starves. It just takes longer with the centrist Democrat.
Replace the starving man with the poor, the working and middle classes, and you have the reality and effectiveness of voting for Republicans and centrist Democrats.
Vote, but vote effectively for Sanders - Warren - Ocasio-Cortez Democrats.
4
Democrats have sat by with the hands in pockets while Republicans have cheated them again and again. Precluding President Obama's Supreme Court choice for 10 months from even having a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, eliminating the filibuster rule, gerrymandering election districts, claiming thousands of illegal voters, is cheating, pure and simple. It's distressing that President Obama didn't speak up loudly and clearly about it at the time, but that's history now.
Democrats need an effective, forceful leader to take on the Republicans. Nancy Pelosi is surely not the person, and while she is helpful raising money for candidates, has become a bit of a punching bag for Republicans. She must, for the good of the country, step down. Chuck Shumer also seems to lack the intensity and fighting spirit needed now. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to hold election rallies (more than 1 1/2 years after the election!) that generate coverage of his fans cheering him on, making it appear on news and radio that he has a strong and committed following. Time for Democrats to find those leaders who are not cowed by the system and who can speak out with force and conviction, helping to build a strong opposition so we can take back the House and, hopefully, the Senate this fall.
4
This situation has been 30-40 yrs in the making. Individual conservatives all over the country have been steadily, w/great dedication, working all that time to get here. Voting, running for office, taking state legislatures and governorships, gerrymandering, voting, creating the propaganda machine that is Fox News, voting, purging voter rolls, voting, appointing judges, voting, voting. Where have the Dems been? Where are the now? Who knows. Nowhere. The % of Dems and young people voting is always lower than Republicans and old people. We will always have the Dems who voted 3rd party or stayed home in 2016 to thank for mr trump. Will they do something effective now? Nope. No effective leadership, no cooperation w/in the party, no coherent plan.
Please, prove me wrong.
3
For all the folks who exclaim that, "elections have consequences", as if that should shut people up from concerns about government policies which affect their lives, liberties, and pursuit of happiness, such actions break the implicit agreement that founds democratic governance. The ability of Republicans to enact policies and laws as well as to impose judges upon the rest of us intended to preserve their power and preferences which advantage themselves at the expense of all others is not fair play but predatory behavior.
2
Judge Anthony Kennedy was really not an ideologist like Anthony Sacalia, but few important events he did remained on the other side of the extreme rightists opinion, and delivered fair judgement. Otherwise, he was conservative in all respect and lived conservative till the end. His last conservative action of siding with the extremists in giving horrible judgement in favor of Muslim ban, against Unions and abortion issue will be remembered for long time. Above all the worst, he elected to retire at the worst time; which can give a golden opportunity to the right wing extreme conservatives and racist Trump to select his own person to occupy the most powerful position for a long life time period. Hope, all democrats will remain united to overcome this deadliest blow thrown by Justice Kennedy and push the selection at least beyond November when new democratic controlled senate will be in power.
2
We must increase the number of justices and establish term limits. I'm open to debate the proper length of those terms.
You have to wonder what is going on in Judge Kennedy's head since his announcement. Looking at his record one would see a man who followed his beliefs in our Constitution, not party lines. So why did he announce now instead of after the Nov. elections? Surely he must know a replacement of his caliber and sense of the law will not be appointed. What was offered to him to do this now?
3
I can understand how everyone on the left feels, how depressed, beaten, and marginalized they feel, and for hundred valid reasons they believe their vote isn't going to make a difference. I'm right there with you, I'm angry, depressed and devastated also, but giving up isn't the answer. We need to support one another, walk, knock on doors, make phone calls, and ask people to vote, vote, and vote. Otherwise, if we think things are bad now, without voting some of these losers out of their seats, the future can be indescribable.
2
If the Dems retake Congress -- which is not at all assured -- they had better grow a spine and take meaningful action to correct some of the damage done by Trump and his Gang of Puritanical thieves. That means term limits for Supreme Court justices, kicking Gorsuch off his stolen seat, getting rid of the Electoral College and making all state and federal elections subject to popular vote, outlawing gerrymandering, abolishing Citizens United, real campaign finance reform, eliminating all voter suppression and phony ID requirements; and eliminating the primary system and letting Dems, Reps, Independents and all comers compete in open elections where everyone votes regardless of party affiliation. Finally, a Democratic-led Congress should enact a law that prohibits presidents under investigation by special counsel from any executive actions or appointments until such investigations are completed. That would restore some of the democracy we have lost.
5
If the Dems regain power they should start by impeaching Justices who were put on the card by manipulative means. Never happen the Republicans play to win. The Democrats just pander. This mess did not start under Trump he just raised it to an art form and the Dems did nothing for the working and middle class
3
Considering how complacent and complicit the Democrat leaders are, I'd not be surprised if they're on the Republican payroll.
1
"Sport's Medicine NYer here:"
re your reply to my comment on the NYTimes Editorial -- "Kennedy is Gone. Now Vote" -- here's why I don't think Trump is doing "a great job".
If you consider ruining our relationships with nations that have been our staunchest allies for more than 70 years "a great job," okay.
If you consider undermining the laws of our Constitution by hiring the most corrupt cabinet in the 240-year history of the United States, "a great job," okay.
If you consider making America a laughingstock of the civilized world, by placing our great democracy in the same totalitarian basket as North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tsarist Russia, Turkey and the Philippines "a great job," okay.
If you consider the stock market not having increased at all since January 2018 -- after 75 successive months of steady growth from the end of the 2007-9 recession through January, 2017 )-- "a great job," okay.
If you consider the decisions by Harley-Davidson and other US manufacturers to move factories and production overseas, to avoid high tariffs from Trump's trade war "a great job," okay.
The only "great job" Mr. Trump is doing is a snow-job on really gullible folks.
Sports
Medicine36m ago
NYer here. Trump has been in the public eye here for decades.. Hes been nothing but a success and a stalwart here. Never considered a racist, until he won an election against Democrats. There are many of us, right here in liberal NYC, that believe he will be the greatest President ever.
2
Every day, just when i think things cannot get any worse under Emperor Trump, something happens. I am by no means an over reactive or dramatic person, however I am getting really concerned about the slow disintegration of our country. Our ethical and moral traditions are eroding every day. When will our politicians wake up to this destructive behavior and get away from this tribal behavior and partisan politics.
An open call to any of the 'adults' still left in the room: Please wake up from your stupor and save us!
I personally think its time to look at ROE again.. Im sure everyone of you touts the advances in climate science and evolution theories.. Well.. A lot has changed in what we know of the human embryo. Time to revisit the issue from a science,moral and constitutional perspective.
Anyone who doesn't think his vote doesn't count, just look at things today. We have President Trump because too many didn't vote -- and because of those folks who voted for Trump out of petulant anger that Bernie Sanders (my choice, too) lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton. Look at how low turn out effects not just this last presidential election but so many others that were squeakers, like the Bush-Gore race. Please. Yes, your vote does count. The only time it doesn't count is if you don't vote.
3
vote! yes, of course.
but additionally, let's do all that's possible to get rid of the divisive, obsolete Electoral College, which effectively gave us Trump and Bush, Jr... and all the disaster they have wrought.
2
"Show up and vote."
GIVE US SOME DESIREABLE CANDIDATES.
2
Please do more than vote. Join up with a viable campaign and do voter contact. They don't talk about TV, mail, Facebook ads when it is time to run GOTV (get out the vote operations), the books mention the two things that effect the outcome of elections, and that is phone banking and knocking on doors. And the books say if you can only do one, phone. Phone contact rate is much higher than doors. On doors you would mostly be just leaving a flyer at the door. It takes direct contact with the voter. If door hangers did the job, then campaigns would be safe just mailing everyone a flyer. I have consistently gotten the highest number of Dems out to vote as a field operator, and I don't send people out to knock doors. The one place doors are necessary is in poorer black neighborhoods. Poor whites vote for Republicans, so don't go there. Aside from poor black neighborhoods call. It's scary how many campaigns don't even know how to target, how to choose who a campaign should be calling at which stage of the race.
1
Let's not forget his worst: Bush v. Gore, which is an important cause of the composition of the court.
1
Roe v Wade found that women have the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy up to a certain time before a birth. The right of people to love and have intimate relations between them selves once they have reached maturity and to marry was recognized. The right of people to enjoy all the rights of citizenship and to live as freely as everyone else is not to be deprived by any governmental body. The right to gain a fair share of the productivity to which they contribute with collective bargaining. The right do follow one's own conscience and to express oneself even when it annoys the sensibilities of everyone else. These are the results of the liberal interpretations over the last century and a half, and all of these the judges that will be nominated by Trump will want to reduce a lot, because they come from a perspective that finds too much democracy and individual freedom enables behaviors which they see as negative.
As a progressive libertarian the rightward movement of the court offends me.
However I'm not sure if I want the blue wave to happen this year or in 2020.
It's called tough love sometimes people need to suffer the consequences of what they vote for, to learn.
1
Yes. Vote is the answer. We should not rely on 9 old men and women accountable to nobody to protect our rights. I agree with Roe v. Wade but the problem is that 5 people can make it go away. If we vote in rights, they cannot be taken away by 5 political hacks on the supreme court bench.
1
With 60 votes needed for cloture in the Senate President Trump will need to nominate a person who is acceptable to the Republicans and Democrats in the middle. If he is given solid advice, Trump will select a judge that’s a sort of wild card that might appeal to these moderates, someone they can safely admit to their constituents that they voted for. If Trump picks a deeply conservative person expect Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to have doubts, expect Joe Manchin to say no and expect John McCain to stay home. But if he picks a stellar judge whose opinions are not always what one expects, these folks will be on board and their votes are needed in a 51/49 Senate. This is going to be a very hot, swampy summer in DC.
Don’t put our eggs in their baskets. They talk a good line but can rarely be counted on to follow through. In the end they go along with the party line. Sad but true. They’ve gotten my hopes up one too many times.
Conservatives contribute consistency and stability. Liberals/progressives contribute adaptability and removal of unjust practices. Conservatives can condone injustices both because they fear unexpected injustices with change and because they just want to preserve their advantages. Progressives can focus so much upon correcting inequities that they fail to consider the overall consequences and sometimes condone actions that a can amount to payback. A balanced court is more likely to be fair and to produce better decisions.
Yes, we need to vote, but before that we need to put pressure on vulnerable Republicans not to approve a far-right judge before the November elections. Then we need to work like heck to re-elect ten current Democrats in the Senate and at least two more must join them.
Meanwhile, write, email and call the several moderate Republican senators who would are pro-choice, for example. Tell them you are depending on them to make sure we get a moderate judge who will not overturn hard-won civil rights for gays, for women and for others.
3
Although the NYT editorial cites many of the specifics, conflating SCOTUS decisions on social issues (e.g., Roe v Wade) with those that affect the voting process itself smacks of not seeing the forest for the trees. Republicans have biased the American voting system profoundly. By packing the federal judiciary, including SCOTUS, with reactionary activists, court decisions on gerrymandering, Citizens United and the Voting Rights Act insure that progressive votes will mean less than those of conservatives for the foreseeable future. Fundamental change to the electoral system and system of senate representation, expansion of the SCOTUS, or secession threats by progressive states that are under-represented all seem unlikely at this point, but so to does the prospect of a few votes changing outcomes in elections rigged to keep Republicans in power.
1
Things have gotten so bad I am wondering if it is best to just start worrying about me.
I never voted Republican. But obviously, others did. So it’s not my fault that things got this bad.
But even so, I am not so sure that any of the stuff that could happen would certainly touch me. I won’t like it, but it won’t effect me directly.
And I am just getting tired of being angry.
So maybe I should just relax. Besides, if I really wanted to worry about something, the looming humanitarian crisis in Yemen would probably merit more my attention than any of the stuff happening in the U.S.
Although it is a lousy deal, what is happening in the U.S., in any case.
2
As you stated in "With Kennedy Gone, It's Up to Voters" (editorial, June 28) only 36 per cent of voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterm elections. This was followed by equally low turnouts in 2016. In the Presidential primaries, according to Pew Research, Republican turnout was only 14.8%. The Democrats drew only 14.4%. The turnout in November 2016 was just 55.4%, the lowest in 20 years, according to CNN. What is needed here to end political dominance by one ideology at Federal and State levels is greater participation by voters. Democracy works best when the voting machines are put to work.
2
The vast majority of conservatives today are more against what America had become by the 1950's than they would have been then, when Eisenhower was President. Now they share the views of the extreme reactionaries of that time. What happened between 1960 and 1980? That was when this change took place. All one need do is revisit the news of those times. It's all there. The backlash against desegregation, the anger to ending prayer in schools, the invalidation of laws against abortion, the anger towards affirmative action, the rejection of the ERA, the end of cheap energy, swift displacement of domestic industrial products with loss of good union jobs, and appalling environmental problems. Each of these contributed to an emerging conservative voting block that rejected everything that had produced their former contentment in the hope that going in a completely different direction would restore it.
1
Citizens United just may be the very reason we have a President Trump. I believe the Mueller investigation is going to show us just how much foreign money poured in to the Trump campaign and possibly the campaigns of some congressmen. I think the Democrats are going to have to find a way to hold the Senate hostage until after the results of the Mueller investigation are known. I don't think a president who is currently under criminal investigation should be able to nominate a Supreme Court Justice until he has at least been cleared of any wrong-doing. In the meantime, Justice Kennedy is getting out of town fast before Mueller exposes the disastrous results of Citizens United.
6
So, the NYT Editorial Board believes the jurisprudential sky is falling because Justice Kennedy will be replaced by a principled conservative. There are a lot of people who believe the opposite is the case and that the Supreme Court will finally be more concerned with following the express language of the Constitution and the statutes enacted by Congress.
Ever since the court became enmeshed in social issues like abortion, gay rights and criminal procedure the court has become ever more political and subject to political division.
The current makeup of the Supreme Court has four liberals, four conservatives and one moderate conservative. You can tell that is the case because the lineup for every case involving a political or social issue is the same: 4-4-1. Every lawyer that practices in the Supreme Court knows exactly which justice (except Kennedy) is voting on which issue. The Supreme Court is not now and has not been a non-political institution for some time. It is as political as the other branches of government and its justices vote according to their political views.
This is manifest now by the political operation used to confirm a new justice. The Senators vote to confirm or reject an otherwise qualified individual strictly upon political considerations. The judicial nominee is judged, not on his/her qualifications and background, but upon the expectations of where he/she will land on the political issues brought before the court. Nothing more.
7
Democracy is a fragile institution. Regardless of what has happened since 2016, our democracy has the greatest undergirding of strength in the world: We, the People. Throughout our history, we've weathered times like this before. We, the people have changed the bad times. Do not underestimate the power your vote has. Vote for hope, change, and the future.
I love this statement, thank you for posting. This statement of hope for all Americans reflects the feelings on both the left and the right, and all those in between. Many feel this way each time a President or congress member of another party is voted in. All should remember there are those who have a different viewpoint and should act moderately where there isn’t a consensus and move swiftly when there is, and to make things better as we can.
"The Supreme Court is designed as a countermajoritarian institution, and operates as a crucial check in a democracy based on majority rule. Still it is hard to swallow that this court is about to solidify a deeply conservative majority, despite the fact that in six of the last seven presidential elections, more Americans have voted for a Democrat than for a Republican."
Nice sleight-of-hand, as two of those candidates (Gore and HRC) were never elected. That aside:
In other words, we like Justices appointed by Democratic presidents more than those appointed by Republican presidents. In other words, this is simply a question of whose ox is gored, since everyone seems to want a Justice who is not a lawyer, but a politician with views similar to his/her own.
Why is it wrong when Trump lawfully appoints a successor to Kennedy, but automatically just fine when Obama appointed Kagan and Sotomayor? Justices don't always do what they're "expected" to do. See, e.g., Justice Souter, a "conservative" Republican nominee who was in fact a centrist/sometimes liberal judge, once confirmed.
Remember Korematsu v US? US citizens of Japanese ancestry were deprived of both liberty and property without due process, in part because 6(!) justices of the Supreme Court appointed by that liberal lion, FDR, said it was OK.
If the Supreme Court is just an echo chamber of the White House or Congress, then we only have 2 branches of government. Who appoints the justices becomes immaterial.
4
Thank you for the reminder to vote. I will be voting my conscience, which says to vote only for Republicans, unless it's for a State office in which the incumbent's competence -- instead of the Democrats' pure political ploys -- might play a factor.
Voting is important but, by its nature, a periodic event. Here the next election of consequence will come after the fact. A new reliably right-wing justice is on track for confirmation well before the midterm elections. The only thing that could realistically slow the process down would be massive street protests during the confirmation hearings.
2
I will certainly make sure I am around to vote but I don't want to be told who I should vote for and I never tell anyone else including my family members who they should vote for.
As an independent, I vote for candidates not the party and so I will vote on the basis of what a candidate hopes to accomplish after being elected.
Since not the congress but the senate will be involved with the confirmation of the justice to replace justice Kennedy, this midterm election, will not be an issue on which I will be able to vote. Neither of our 2 senators Paul and McConnell are up for reelection.
So all I can say to senators from my state of Kentucky is confirm an independent minded Kennedy like justice.
1
Having turned 71 this week I was the recipient of a number of unwanted “gifts:” a number of reactionary, non progressive Supreme Court opinions guaranteed to remove a significant amount of the foundation supporting equality and fairness and the founding principles of the US. Then the retirement of Kennedy who while guilty of having cast the majority vote in Citizens United thereby making our elections turn on money more so than ever before, still provided some offsetting weight to the reactionary direction of the court and executive and legislative branches. All this on top of the immigration nightmare of the last two weeks.
This all is added to the tragedy of November 2016.
While I have lived most of the life I am to live I truly fear for the future of my children and grandchildren. I see nothing in the future for this country but chaos, strife, civil unrest and environmental disaster that will only amplify that chaos, strife and civil unrest. We have reached the ledge but are no longer looking down into it. We are falling quickly to the rocks below.
6
How about charging Congress with DOING something. If they embody the will of the people then THEY should pass the National Abortion Rights Act and enshrine the conclusion of Roe into law.
Stop letting them rely on the executive and judicial branches to handle the issues they abdicate on. The President is not an emperor and Supreme Court is not supposed to legislate from the bench.
All of these “controversial” issue that most voters agree on as areas for Congress to act. The SCOTUS is not supposed to be the goalie here—the Federal branches are supposed to be co-equal and keeping an eye on the other two to make sure no one branch accumulates too much power.
Yet here we are at another left-wing freakout because the Supreme Court is les likely to conclude in a manner they find agreeable. Just as we had a big right-wing freakout when Obama’s appointees came up because now the Court was less likely to decide in a way THEY liked.
Use the owner’s manual for our republic here, people! Make congress act on these issues instead of relying on the SC or the President to just make it so.
You live in the nation you deserve if you don’t get actually engaged. Maybe vote every time there is an issue to be decided instead of only when the editorial board deigns to instruct you so.
1
Do you really believe that this Republican Senate and House will do the right thing? They have our huddled masses right where they want them: befuddled and ignorant of the issues.
Our only hope is to get the out to vote. As for me, I will be doing something I shudder to consider: voting straight down the Democrat line on every vote for the next few years. Surely, it could not be nearly as bad as what we have now.
If it should ever occur, the first order of business when Democrats take control of Congress and the White House is to enact a mandatory voting law similar to that of Australia.
3
How can it be that a Russian plant grifter gets to make two Supreme Court justice nominations? A man who can barely formulate a cohesive sentence unless it’s to hurl insults at whoever disagrees with him. A man who embraces dictators and despots while eschewing democratically elected leaders.
If Kennedy cared about this country and the rule of law he would have announced after the midterms. My guess is the Merritt Garland usurper talked him into it so conservatives can stack the court.
Mitch McConnell’s plan to
Obstruct
Obstruct
Obstruct
Paid dividends.
Democrats, take a page from good ol’ Mitch's playbook and obstruct every move he attempts to make.
Obstruct
Resist
Vote
7
I am sad , we have this situation because Dems elected to have Hillary as its candidate and GOP failed to stop Trump. Hillary haters ruined a women's right to choose for our life time and the rest of human dignity paradigm USA worked hard to establish post WW2.
I was told when Trump got elected that we have our Capitol to watch for us .. yeah right GOP today looks more like an accomplice as we plunge in to darker days.
Alas "Lady Liberty " you are not free to chose any more. Just plain sad!
so i ask the Ralph Nader voters in 2000(especially in Florida) and the Jill Stein and Gary Johnson feel now?
happy you threw away your vote?
happy with this result?
6
So I ask the people who supported Hillary in 2016, and denied Bernie a fair shot in the primaries, are you happy now? Are you happy that Hillary could not carry the battleground states won by Barack Obama in 2012, could not defeat a barbarian like Trump?
2
The Democratic Party lost the election because they did not get citizens to support their platform.
That is on them- not the voters.
The Democratic Party only fights on behalf of illegal economic migrants. Illegal economic migrants can't vote.
Stop blaming voters for the failures of the Democratic Party.
2
You guys can all thank Joe Biden for the current predicament you find yourselves in. If he hadnt refused to let Bush II nominate what would have been a moderate justice, one that could get through a democrat controlled senate, You would not have neil gorsuch on the court today.
BHO nominated sotomayor in place of Bush II'spick. She is as left as Gorsuch is right.. You cant complain about one and not the other without being a hypocrite.
IF biden doesnt invent the biden rule, we would have 2 more moderate justices on the court and 2 less ideologues.
Everytime the democrats "change the rules" it bites them squarely in the end. Mitch McConnell stood on the floor and told you guys that this would happen.. Boom...
7
Rocket, you’re not too swift.
Biden made the hypothetical posit in a 1992 speech, George H.W. Bush was President not Dubya. Sotomayor wasn’t even on the horizon.
1
How right you are. Democrats won the battle in 2008, but may have lost the war.
Liberals should be supporting an activist judicial court that legislates from the bench, overturns established precedents , and usurps executive powers... oh wait as long as they agree and then anything goes.
A proposal.... Conservatives and liberals should jointly curb the unconstitutional expansion of unelected and ideological driven fiat by curbing judicial tyranny.
Nearly all of these landmark cases should properly have been legislated through democratic process and not by judicial fiat.
Liberals you got what you wanted... now live with it!
3
Highly offended by the name your are using. It is a direct insult to President Barack Obama and does not belong on a site of this stature.
2
Really and truly the barbarians are at the gate. Our Bill of Rights will be as useful as last week’s newspapers. We risk a judicial dictatorship where our Constitution is amended with each decision. Since Marberry vs Madison, the Supreme Court, on its own say so was the last word and could strike down laws passed by Congress and executive actions, with no further judicial appeal and the judges are nelected and serve for life. It is one thing to be antimajoritorian and and another to be a rubber stamp for a tyranical out of control kelptocratic and lawless government.
Unless we prevent Herr Trump from filling Kennedy’s seat or any other, Dole v Dow will be overruled along with most of the First Amendment. How do we prevent the majority prevent that with a minority government. Our liberty and physical security is on the line. Progress and enlightenment will be kaput if we the majority whoARE loyal to our Constitution do not register and vote.
Yet the barbarians plan to act before the election. To prevent this we must be in the streets and we must make it clear that barbarians who lose their seats in the election will have no guarantee that they and their families will not see the pitchforks of an enraged citizeny seeking vengeance and retribution.
If we fail, the barbarians will be building concentration camps which they will call freedom camps. If we fail, rulings holding children and babies as political hostages is just peachy keen and 100% constitutional.
1
Imagine the shrieking hysteria of The Editorial Board if Gov. Earl Warren [R-CA] were Trump's nominee to replace Justice Kennedy. The Old White Guy who incarcerated American citizens. The Old White GOP stalwart who would deliver reliable votes that would further the status quo of WASP supremacy. The Right Winger whom Ike trusted to interpret the Constitution as if it were 1789 again....If The Editorial Board were thrashing around in its apoplectic fits in 1952, Earl Warren would never have been confirmed because he would have never supported minority rights [Brown vs.], criminal reform [Miranda]or anything the Left holds dear...So much for the sagacity of the Editors. So much for the wisdom of the Editors. So much for the prescience of the Editors. So much for the self-serving biases and bigotry of the Editors...Who knows if the next Earl Warren is on Trump's list. For those of us who care about The Court and not the fortunes and whims of the political establishment, let's hope that Trump is as disappointed with his nominee as Ike was with Warren.
4
Not to mention the Editors supported Hillary over Bernie. Now the entire Democratic Party is moving towards Bernie's corner. Maybe if the Editors had supported Bernie and the excitement he generated among Trump voters in the Midwest, we would have President Sanders instead of Trump.
1
Although I mourn the likely appointment of a conservative jurist to replace Kennedy, it might be a good for Democrats. The Democrats would have a position that many people care about, and that distinguishes them from Republicans. Last time we had that (Healthcare) - we voted in a Dem president, a Dem House and a Dem Senate.
Since then, the Democrats have struggled to define a position that matters enough to turn out the vote. People are profoundly conflicted on most issues - even and especially immigration. While tearing children from parents stirs us up - and rightly so - the rest seems to not be enough to tip voters to the left. Even anti-Trump sentiment might not be enough this fall.
Now, without the security blanket of Kennedy to protect Roe vs Wade, there is suddenly an important reason to vote Dem. That might help this fall.
1
Although I have great respect for the NYT, I think this editorial is terribly naive.
Look back about 20 months or so. Almost no one would have predicted a Trump election. In the following weeks/months there were assurances that our system of checks and balances would keep our Nation safe and upright.
Well, the Constitution was more fragile than I thought. It hasn’t protected us from one party rule. For all the talk about the Mueller probe, possible impeachment’s, etc., this guy Trump has cut a wide swath of destruction overnprinciples that many of us hold dear.
The election (s) ? I fear they hold little hope. The GOP now controls everything. They will use legal and illegal,means to hold and to expand their rule over us.
5
According to the Constitution, there is only Freedom of Association and to Petition, nothing restricted what we call political parties. There is no such statement in the Constitution about political parties at all. If the people choose representatives who happen to all belong to the same organization, well, that's what happens. Surely this poster would be happy with "one-party rule" if they were all Democrats. Stop whining about straw-persons and making everything a constitutional catastrophe; start convincing people that your choices for (small-r) representatives are good ones. Then you might get some elected. Everything that our current President has done is legal and allowed; you just don't like any of it. Too bad for you.
Ah, NMAAHC...nowhere in my post was there “whining”. Or, maybe you’re just one of your hero’s wannabe “tough guys”.
The President has just won the equivalent of the Powerball Lottery. It's already over with....Republicans control the Senate and the timing. Winner takes all.
With Kennedy exiting, and at some point the 85 year old Bader-Ginsberg and 79 year old Breyer likely to be next, has an unprecedented opportunity to completely reshape the court.
When all is said and done, Trump's overwhelming impact and legacy lasting for decades long after he's out of office will be his appointees to the Supreme Court and the decisions they make.
4
As a conservative woman, I couldn't be happier that Trump (whom I did not vote for) is going to select a young, conservative, originalist Justice to replace Kennedy. Hopefully he will be confirmed quickly and take his place on the high court. No obstructionism, Democrats. As Barack Obama said, elections have consequences and Supreme Court appointments are one of those consequences.
8
except if you are President Obama.
2
The double whammy from the Supreme Court in recent days – the decision upholding Trump's Muslim ban and Justice Kennedy's retirement – is an occasion to mourn. And it is heartbreaking when one considers that with Hillary's election, America would have benefited from a solid 6-3 liberal majority on the Court. Now we will have the polar opposite: a solid 6-3 reactionary majority which will last at least a generation.
This means our beloved country will go from bad to worse. It means the consolidation of a slow-rolling coup by the wealthiest and most reactionary elements in America. A coup which started with Reagan and now has culminated in Trump; a seizure of power by a minority of a minority by means of gerrymandering, suppression of voting rights, elimination of restraints on secret money in politics, Fox News, and most recently the assistance of hostile foreign power to install its agent in the White House. It means a worsening of income inequality, an acceleration of the destruction of unions, the neutering of environmental regulation, the sabotage of a woman's right to choose, a continuing attack on immigrants including on legal immigrants, and the further withering of democratic institutions.
It means that each day we will continue to wake up in an America we less and less recognize as the vibrant, democratic country of immigrants we grew up in. The progressive majority in this country will pick itself up and move forward. But this is, as I said, a moment to grieve.
3
Sadly, I live in a region of the East Coast where nativism dominates the political agenda. I will continue to oppose Mr. Trump’s agenda by voting for candidates that oppose the continuous drift to the extreme right. The elected officials and local public opinion support Mr. Trump, and hold that he is working hard to hault the decline of America. There is no room for civil discourse given the strident nature of their views. The New York Times provides hope that what is unfolding will not usher in the end of democracy.
3
Flake and Corker are Right Wing Ideologues. No mater how much they want to get even with Trump they want a far right wing justice added to the Court even more. Just like they wanted the Trickle Down Tax Cuts more than they wanted to control the deficit.
4
18th Century Constitution, 18th Century institutions, reactionary and regressive owner class.. America is going back to its roots.
Make 18th Century America great again!
2
Trump will appoint a conservative judge and it will go through even though Chucky Shumer will complain bitterly. Ginsberg is not well and I believe that Trump will appoint a conservative judge to replace her. Life is short and the unpredictable happens.
2
No matter how I vote in November, or how anyone else votes, the Supreme Court will be the handmaiden of the far right for the foreseeable future. The thing is, the real battle should have been won in 2016. The Supreme Court should have been the main issue, and voting to protect liberal values should have been at the top of everyone's list of issues. But only about a third of eligible voters voted, so here we are.
I do not see any reason to hope that things will be different in November, or in 2020. Trumps' base is if anything stronger and more committed than before. Trump campaigns constantly, holding rallies and pandering to the worst impulses of his base. There is nothing comparable happening on the left. There is no person that embodies the hopes and values of the left, and no platform that has been articulated that gives us something to believe in. Democrats remain totally ineffective as far as their ability to stir the masses with their vision, and to unite their disparate factions into a united and motivated whole.
My guess is that almost everyone the reads the NYT's voted in the last election. The people we need to reach and inspire to act do not read the Times. My guess is that a lot of them think it is "fake news", and that what they do makes no difference anyway. I live in Idaho, and I can tell you voting here gives me no sense of having accomplished anything. This black hole just keeps getting deeper.
4
Trump supporters are old and dying off. He lost the last election by 3 million votes even with Comey, Putin and Johnson and Weld taking votes away from her.
The Legislative and Executive Branches are all that will be left to save our democracy. Those are the votes that will count even more from now on.
The Supreme Court Justice who delivered the majority ruling in Citizens United is retiring, and now it's supposed to matter more that individual citizens vote?
What an obnoxiously patronizing editorial board. Corporeal non-human entities are legally allowed to express their 'right' to free speech, effectively nullifying every single voter's choice simply by writing a few checks, and now we are to understand that our votes matter more?
Personally, I'll continue to vote until there aren't elections anymore; an outcome which doesn't seem that implausible given the implications of the 2020 Census.
2
Hillary outspent Trump by a massive amount of money. Citizens United and all that corporate money did not matter. Besides, Hillary got most of the Wall Street money. I guess you still need good candidates.
2
Sadly America is about to sink into the abyss of reactionary conservatism. But it is such an essentially racist and xenophobic country - as witnessed by Republican majorities and Trump - that in the end we have to think only that this is effectively what America wants. And yes the majority vote democrat, but its shouldn't be that close that gerrymandering matters.
But States rights prevail apparently - so let thinking people move to California or New York where they dont have to be surrounded by those who would oppress them for not being Christian or white or old.
1
The vote was already taken, and the Republicans won this time. If it mean's so much to you, whining doesn't help, running a poorly thought out campaigned with a "deserving" candidate or who's "turn' it was, doesn't work. Can the Democrats actually unify and put forth a candidate that can win everywhere? I'm concerned because next time, it's going to be at least two more and then it's really over.
2
Now vote. Ok, but I have not yet heard an essential element to that directive. It is imperative that the Democratic Party get out the so-called "Minority Vote." That vote is not minor; it is where democratic power lies. It is imperative that the party matches its candidates to its constituents. Otherwise yesterday's black day will stretch on for years.
2
And be sure that undocumented immigrants register and vote in November, too. That's the Democratic Party way.
I completely agree with this editorial. The premier power in the government should be the Congress. Both the left and the right have used the executive and the judicial branches as shortcuts for their goals when legislation would do. While difficult and messy (like making sausage) it is a representative democracy. Perfect? No! But then it never has been, just as the public is neither more nor less ignorant than anytime in our history.
As a progressive I get mad when Democrats don’t kick Republicans where it would do the most good, but I remember the depression adage “People all around have it hard, so what are you complaining about?”. Get off the pot and get to work. Don’t expect praise and don’t expect the heavens to open to a progressive paradise in your lifetime. Lean into the harness and work, and be ready to pass the baton at the end.
You can delay the future, but you can never stop it.
2
the Congressional right,responding to their voters,feel the
same way about the Rapture.
Justice Kennedy’s retirement will galvanize both Dems and Republicans to go to the polls. The Democrats are in real trouble no matter what the polls say. It was their election to lose in 2016 and boy did they ever lose! Midterms elections will likely go to the Republicans and Kennedy’s replacement will likely occur before the midterm elections. It’s a done deal. I hear plenty of Democrats blaming almost everyone... but themselves. If they don’t come to grips with their faults, they’ll lose 2020 and possibly beyond.
3
Specifically - get the liberal vote out in those states with right wing over-representation in the Senate - the low population, right wing states. And the low population, right wing house districts that generally vote against the needs of people and for the needs of large ag, mining and energy corporations.
2
It has always been about voting! Every election cycle I suffer the same disappointment; nearly half of our fellow citizens fail to vote. It isn't just a right, it's also an obligation. It's disheartening to see so many citizens ignore that obligation, some perhaps have a legitimate reason but most simply have no excuse. No matter how any of us feel about the current president or the ultra-partisan members of Congress, our actions, or lack thereof, put those people in place. If you failed to vote and don't like the current state of affairs you need only look in the mirror to find the cause. Educate yourself, not by reading facebook posts or Twitter comments but by digging into the candidates positions. Read more than a sentence or watch more than an offensive TV ad, dig then dig a little deeper, listen carefully and maybe even put as much effort into making an election choice as you would into buying a smartphone.
1
If SCOTUS is really just another level of decision-making based on pre-existing political biases the American way of life is in serious jeopardy. Decisions should be based upon precedent,and decency and American values.Appointees must start with an open mind not bound by previously held political views. Partinsanship is the purview of elected officials.
I didn’t vote for Trump; I reluctantly voted for Hillary, a candidate I felt was flawed. Likewise, my feelings about the Supreme Court and its recent decisions have been mixed. I can’t support rulings that cripple unions and declare corporations are people. I supported gay marriage, but opponents feel with some justification that “activist judges” forced that decision (and Roe v. Wade) on states where a majority of voters had voted against it. I also support the freedom of expression rights of cake decorators and florists who don’t want to provide their services at a gay wedding and OBGYNs who don’t want to be forced to perform abortions. I would hope for a justice who respects individual rights to free expression and freedom of religion, especially those people who hold opinions that are not supported by the New York Times, but will disappoint Trump on other issues.
1
Trump and a Republican Senate were elected by the voters. They will do what they were elected to do. There was no mystery about their intentions and they got the votes. If we want change we have to earn it at the voting booth. If we don't like gerrymandering, the electoral college, citizens united, overturning Row v. Wade, then the founding fathers set up a procedure for change. Vote the bums out. If we can't accomplish that then the system set up by the founding fathers is working fine.
2
Yes, you are correct. Vote. But, you assume a level playing field where all eligible voters have the same access to the process. The treasonous GOP is doing everything it can to prevent people from voting.
Voting is now, for some, an arduous uphill project.
Clearly we are not a nation of laws. Clever justices strain to justify their desired outcomes. We are a nation of judges and justices whose politics are not hidden by their robes. My opinion is likely influenced by disappointment from recent decisions.
3
I agree with the Editorial Board. Vote. Vote for Trump Republicans who will ensure that the Supreme Courts remains a judicial board rooted in common sense and a strict interpretation of the Constitution as it was meant to be interpreted by its Framers.
3
While I have no doubt that Trump will appoint someone who is more conservative than Justice Kennedy to SCOTUS, I must remind my liberal friends that it was someone named Justice Roberts who was the fifth vote that upheld Obamacare. While I'm not surprised that the NYT Editorial Board is apoplectic about Kennedy's replacement, not all Justices vote reliably on what is perceived as their "ideology". Justice Souter, appointed by President George Bush, comes to mind as someone who was supposed to be conservative but voted more center/left on social issues.
While I was personally happy when the Supreme Court ruled for same-sex marriages, I was also dismayed that this ruling would effectively stop the momentum that State Legislatures were, at the same time, passing laws in favor of such marriages. Sometimes it's best to let hard felt social issues be played out at the state level before the Court can enshrined them as a right. As we've seen with many Court rulings, sometimes there's pent up anger when the necessary debates at the local level aren't performed.
3
And here is one more reason to vote. When the Mueller investigation is completed, if any wrongdoing is found on Trump's part, nothing will happen unless we have a Democratic majority in Congress. Only Congress has the power to remove a sitting president. That alone has me more motivated than ever for November.
8
I am reading a lot of comments that question the value of voting. Sure I get those arguments and share many of those concerns. But at the same time, democracy in the US has not totally crumbled yet. Let's have some faith in the institutions in the country. Let's encourage every single person we know, right now, to ensure they are registered and ready to vote on November 6. Most of us have spent countless hours wondering how the 2016 election might have gone differently. We can't change that. Changing the balance of power in congress will go some way towards limiting Trump's power and restraining what dismays us so much. It is literally the least we can do. Please please please...vote. Have some faith in this country and each other. There is still a lot of good in this country.
2
Mr. Justice could have VERY easily waited till January to retire. But that would not be politics. Would it?
6
The biggest mistake made by Democrats was made when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. It was at that time, they had the ability to abolish the Electoral College but didn't. Not doing that then is going to haunt all of us for decades. If they were to take control of House, Senate, and Presidency in 2020, that has to be the first priority of business. Never again should we elect a President who did not win the majority of votes and the will of the people. The EC is a sham, a throwback to colonial times. It has no useful purpose today but to rob a legitimate winner an election. Folks, go out and vote in the elections to come and in 2020. DO NOT TAKE ANY ELECTIONS FOR GRANTED.
9
I agree, democrats should have done more at that time. But I think you are totally mistaken on this issue. A quick google search produces:
The electoral college is enshrined in our Constitution, which means getting rid of it requires a constitutional amendment. That's a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.
That would not have been possible even at the start of Obama's presidency.
4
Rather than engage in that deluded thought experiment of putting 17 cities in charge of every election, perhaps the Democratic triumvirate might have passed universal healthcare etc.
2
It will Never happen. It requires two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate and the ratification of three-fourths (38) of the 50 states.
3
Amen! The ballot box is all that we have left to preserve the democracy. Chose wisely!
4
This article is so full of misleading or downright dishonest statements that it should be pulled and rewritten.
Characterizing the Voting Rights decision as supporting racist gerrymandering is a lie. Read your own references. The court said:
"the trial court had “committed a fundamental legal error” by requiring state officials to justify their use of voting maps that had been largely drawn by the trial court itself."
The lines were drawn by the trial court, after the Supreme Court ordered it to redraw. Twice.
Similarly, the reference to "killing the filibuster" blames Republicans but conveniently forgets to mention that this was enabled by political gamesmanship by Chuck Shumer and Harry Reid.
This is just partisan whining.
3
The filibuster was killed by Reid for only the confirmation of presidential appointees to the executive branch. This was in direct response to the Republican obstructionism for six years running in refusing to even allow votes on nominees at all. McConnell killed the filibuster for supreme court nomination which have lifetime appointments, far longer than any executive appointment would have. This is a much more severe destruction of Senate norms than was ever done by Reid.
9
You wouldn’t say such a thing if the court was all left leaning and ruling in
accordance with your politics.
One reason we are at this time in history is because of liberal dishonesty.
Hypocrisy is Republicans acting like ''family values' has been their political identity as they turn a blind eye to children in cages, to a president with porn stars + a fix it lawyer, a president who likely cavorted with Putin to get elected.
Republicans: Giving themselves + the wealthiest a huge tax cut, having celebrated taking away health care from millions, + degrading poor Medicaid recipients. The president + his family benefit directly from tax cuts for the rich. Family members reside as if royalty in the white house.
Oh yeah, their president made fun of a disabled man. And demeaned private citizens for protest while he's not even able to sing the national anthem. (We saw him fumble the words.)
Cruel to a Gold Star mother, to a grieving widow who lost her husband at war, to a dying senator. Demands private citizens protest only as he declares appropriate. Attacks people.
He'll stack the courts with extremists. A complicit and greedy GOP will not care. Gone will be women's reproductive rights, gay rights, voting rights, privacy, equal access under the law. We may not recognize our democracy.
Buckle up Democrats. Vote.
2
Today seems like the beginning of the worst case scenario, so i have cheered myself up by imagining Trump's defeat in 2020, then the retirement or other form of exit from the Court by Thomas (who never should have been there in the first place) or Alito. One can dream...
3
Shall we count? Clinton appointed two liberals to the court; G. W. Bush two conservatives; Obama two liberals; Trump (presumably) two conservatives.
About what we should have expected given that these presidents had the opportunity.
In any given case, the four liberal justices have been entirely predictable: nobody ever agonizes over how they will vote. All the drama has centered around Justice Kennedy, and, occasionally, Chief Justice Roberts (who for example, pulled a rabbit out of his hat to save the ACA).
Who was it--do you remember?--who said, "Elections have consequences; I won"?
I will personally miss Justice Kennedy who had a libertarian view of the social issues, and I don't want to see abortion rights threatened, etc. But Roberts may still have a few rabbits in his hat. And the four liberal justices will always be utterly predictable.
2
" He protected reproductive rights and saved Roe v. Wade from being effectively overturned. "
In other words, he prevented Americans from voting on a key issue, violating the principles of democracy, and distorted politics for decades, resulting in the election of an idiot to the Presidency. People who weren't allowed to vote on abortion voted for an anti-abortion President instead, because that was the only way to set policy.
4
Now Vote. Yes, vote early and vote often, as is the Democrat's way. We shall see how well this works out, in light of the Janus decision, which of course robs them of the coercion method. As voter ID robs them of the dead and bused-in illegal ballots, and their SCOTUS loss trying to stop Republican gerrymandering while preserving their own.
As your darling Hillary found out, the minority vote that obama enjoyed is not going to be duplicated, in fact President Trump is making historic inroads. Funny how record employment among blacks blunts the "he's racist" narrative. As the craft of "journalism" dies before our eyes, much on these very pages, the public can see the positive results of our President's policies in their lives. So if you think "vote for me, I'll stop all that" is a winning strategy, with Pelosi and Waters out in front, you are manifestly delusional. The left still doesn't understand what happened to Hillary, and has learned nothing. I have been in sales and marketing for a long time. It is the equivalent of asking someone to buy your product (aka, their vote), instead of what they already bought in the past. When the prospective customer asks why, your answer is: "Well, that product is awful, and anyone who bought it is an idiot". "Sure!, I'm convinced! Where do I sign"?
2
Elections matter. Who said that? Oh yah, Barack Obama, remember him.
I just looked at the districts where my twenty something kids live. Colorado Springs - red as red can be. Message to my son : Drop blue Seattle voter registration and register in your red district along with you and your gay roommate who happens to be in the US Army live. Dallas My son in north Dallas and has already switched to vote in his purple district. And nag them to death about this!!! We need to be strategic about this.
3
We have to remember that ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENC. The Democrats and the liberals are too lazy and divided. They do not vote. They look for "purists". They could not vote for Hillary. So many African-American voters did not bother to vote last time. After all the insults from TRump, a significant percentage of Hispanics voted for him. Bernie voters did not vote or vote for Jill Stein. Black Lives matters was fighting against Hillary. Trump had FOX TV and right wing talk radio > Only MSNBC supported Hillary. Even today, the Democrats are fighting like crazy. They should learn from the Republicans "how to win".
3
“you can forget about new or enhanced protections for gays and lesbians, or saving the last shreds of affirmative action at public universities. ”
Not at all, although you might be able to forget about illegitimate judicial amendment and sabotage of the constitution. If you want to repeal the equal protection clause so that affirmative action discrimination is truley constitutional without requiring tirelessness sustaining a fiction, then convince your fellow Americans and amend the constitution. If you want gays and lesbians to have special protection if the constitution instead of just being the beneficiary of the imagination and good will of the current court and its willingness to beat up language, convince the people and get it amended. That is democracy.
2
A few Oligarchs are in full control of our government, and working only for themselves.
Checks and balances are gone.
The coup is complete.
5
You want to get people energized Reinstitute the draft for all 19 year olds male and female. Watch what happens. Complacency is easy now.
5
Yes! Get out and Vote!
It was the lazy and complacent Dem voters who did not bother to vote who put us in our current imbroglio. They were just SO sure Hillary would win.
Get out and vote! We need to take the Senate AND the House back if there is to be any hope.
6
The entire brouhaha about that 81y old guy retiring just shows, as if it has not been abundantly clear so far, how stupid US political system is, and how outrageous is the role of those justices-cum-unelected-politicians. Disbanding or re-defining the role of that court would be no more than common sense.
1
If the Democrats were in charge, they wouldn't have the slightest interest in putting a moderate justice in. Obama put two leftist idealogues in. Sotomayer especially, who seems to have mastered the art of deciding the verdict first based on politics and what she thinks is "right" then using backward convoluted logic to fit it into the "intent" of the constitution, which of course in her mind can be interpreted any way she sees fit. Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama each got in 2 justices. Trump will get his second. To me it seems that 4 Democratic and 4 Republican nominees over 26 years is pretty equal. The idea that somehow the popular vote for President, a meaningless statistic, should be the determinant of Supreme Court nominees is ridiculous. There's a good reason we don't elect Supreme Court judges by popular vote. The Democrats are just as interested in stacking the court with far left liberal judges that will support their politics. They have only themselves to blame for the mess they are in. It was Reid that pulled the nuclear option first to allow federal judges to be confirmed with a simple majority. This allowed Obama to stack the courts with liberal judges, making many activist decisions. So now the Democrats are out of luck. Despite the harsh rhetoric, they are powerless to prevent the appointment of another conservative to the Supreme Court. Elections have consequences, isn't that what Mr Obama told Eric Cantor in 2009?
5
Yes, voting is important. Yes, the midterms are critical. Turnout is a must. We get it. Yada yada yada.
But the lack of an effective opposition party contributes this problem.
Let's face facts: The Democratic Party is no match for the disciplined and resource rich Republican machine with its think tanks, special interest money, media outlets and a disciplined ruthlessness towards elections. The Democratic Party is like the Gauls facing the Roman legions.
The Party needs new blood, new leadership and clearer forceful messaging. In an era of peak crony capitalism and pay-for-play corruption, where is the call for political reform? Too upsetting for the establishment Dems?
My biggest fear is that the ossified leadership of the Party will demoralize the grass roots enthusiasm that we see now.
1
Unlike Gay rights, that were correctly argued and won on the equal protection clause, Roe v Wade was wrongly argued and won on some vague privacy issue and as a result has been over the decades reduced to crumbs and leaves many women with unwanted and uncared for children. It is time to fix this even if it takes overturning it. Very sad.
1
The left by their actions such as what happened at the Red Hen is drawing more people to the right. The civil discord by their actions will assure a Red wave not a Blue one.
6
June 28, 2018
So unlikely to recover; an American court that is a balance for fairness to quality of life and living standards that are non – polarized. So Plan B withdraw and go underground for the social practices that are draconian and just define as evil, and criminal. Or, let’s a smart court that moves the laws toward a working developmental process to encourage and guide the issues for shared growth with tolerances – educational and initiatives that seek to engage in understanding, while living towards protecting the freedom and liberties to enjoy. Thus keeping criminalization in check for a world class America.
As well Plan C - escape from America’s cultural downward spiral of tyrannies in the name of living on the right politics as if theological authority.
Jja Manhattan, N.Y.
1
For all of those who sat out 2016 or said what's the difference between Trump and Clinton, this is what you get. A court that will take away your rights, shove religion down your throat, and think that corporations are people with all of the rights but not any of the responsibilities. You have to vote and you have to vote straight Democratic down the ballot.
2
I've posited the question before and I do so again: IF Americans in those parts of the country that still cherish the ideals of Equal Justice Under Law, among other heretofore taken for granted civil and human rights, find these basic precepts undermined by this grotesque government, DO we come to a crossroad when we say "Enough! We do not respect or adhere to these laws which oppress us to such an extent that we repudiate them, come what may!" What would happen if New York or Massachusetts or Minnesota refused to enforce laws which those states claimed were so heinous and undemocratic that they refused to enforce/enact them? Are we reaching the breaking point in our (fantasy) Union? Are my ideas closer to fact than fiction? After all, electing a government such as this would have been unthinkable just 3 or 4 years ago and I for one repudiate it mostly thanks to the way in which the rules governing the passage of laws and the confirmation of nominees to federal posts have been shredded, thus allowing for the dictatorship of a party with the slenderest majority possible over the other. No, folks, this was not meant to be. By the way, WHERE is the voice on the other side leading the charge against these vermin politicians? Where is the loud and proud and angry voice that we can look to to push back hard against what's happening in Washington? Is there no one on the national level to lead the charge in the defense of our rights as Americans that are being taken away?
3
The court interfered and gave us W (along with his administration's grand plunders) and quit being part of the judicial branch. It's a hoax. It lost its glow. Lucky Merrick Garland for not having to sit on that bench.
1
There's nothing democratic about subverting free speech,
telling Americans what, how and when to think or speak or killing innocent human beings. The left has brought this day on themselves and the ability to bully and threaten people who disagree with them is coming to an end.
5
Let's see. Nobody understood the stakes of the last election. Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option. Biden and other liberal elites famously declared that no Supreme Court justice should be nominated or confirmed during the last year of a President's term. And now all we hear is outrage.
6
Your right nobody understood the stakes especially Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC.
1
Don’t worry everyone! Ivanka will save us.
1
Democrats should have thought of these major consequences (courts will be conservative for the next ~30 years) before they nominated the worst presidential candidate in US history, in 2016. If you want anyone to blame, blame Democrats the most for digging themselves into this hole with their terrible nomination decision in 2016.
Failure by Democrats to drive turnout in 2010 and 2014 is a factor as well, but would have been irrelevant if the Democrats hadn't blundered and shot themselves in the foot in 2016.
The great irony is: over the past 20-30 years, the Democrats have tried to play both sides. They've tried to claim to be fighting for the middle class and poor, while at the same time buddying up to and catering to large corporations/lobbyists, e.g. big pharma, big health insurance, banks etc. The result? They've controlled congress only 4 out of the past 24 years (winning in 06 - 08 practically only because of black swan events such as the financial crisis and war in Iraq)., and the latest result is the courts will continue to be pro-cronyist, anti-middle class etc. The swamp is now deeper and more entrenched than ever.
Meanwhile, they've decided that continuing with Schumer and Pelosi at the helm of the party is the answer, demonstrating that they haven't learned a thing. They still think buddying up to the DC lobbyist class is the answer. The incompetence of the Democratic party isn't stunning anymore...it's just downright pathetic.
5
I sort of resent these pabulum appeals to "go vote." We voted in large numbers in 2016, but it did no good. And I put a good deal of blame on the media, then and now.
We still get a large load of coverage of Trump, and only an occasional nod to Dem. candidates who could have , in my view, put up a broader, more inclusive vision of where we are and what is to be done about it. The media is close to Trump and his Republican allies, every day, in just about every way. Yet little is done to explore why , deep down, so many people support Trump. Those people are not ignorant, stupid, deplorable. But there are issues to mean a lot to them and the current Democratic leadership and the media in general won't go there. Why?
I suspect it is about power. The media and politicians know their power, and they don't want to know what those without power feel. In fact, those in charge must feel a deep despair about what a lose means-and stoking fear among the masses is their response, their game. It's on TV in the main networks, the stories the large news organizations run, the tv shows and movies that are based on violence. It "works" for politicians and media types alike.
We voters have to raise our voices about the whole mess certainly before voting. It would ne nice if the media honored its role to the fullest in the chaos that we live in today.
1
Time magazine cover photo of a child being separated from her mother was shown to be completely false yet they stood by it...Completely dishonest and insulting to the American people.
The press today cannot and must not be trusted to help people put in the best candidates running for office.
1
There are two problems: voting fraud and gerrymandering.
In the first case, the GOP learned how to rig the machines in 2004. The Diebolt told George Bush he would deliver Ohio in 2004 and he did: by cheating. Since then the GOP has perfected it. Hence the term, "I think I voted."
The GOP's secret REDMAP project that Karl Rove is so proud of (Supported by the Koch Brother's dark money.) is designed to withstand a blue wave. The GOP will hold on to the House.
In the end, perhaps in 2020, after the Roberts court has done its partisan best, Roe vs Wade has been overturned, and we really do live in a police state under fascist rule, the voters on the left will rise up to do battle with the Trumpf fascists.
2
Why hasn't the Democrat leadership investigated and reversed the Republican control of the voting machines?
Why did they allow redistricting?
Because they are incompetent and asleep. Their decades of tremorous leadership, built on entitlement, must end. These are failed leaders.
They need to be thrown out.
2
And so begins a new era in which every American with half a brain knows the Supreme Court truly will not be a force for human rights but an extension of partisan division.
2
Stolen SCOTUS seats:
Red team - 2
Blue team - 0
Vote. In every primary and every election.
3
The hard lesson that needs to be learned is that no one can sit on the fence. That includes the NYT, the WP and others. Personally, I see the lack of coherent opposition to trump and the GoP as a direct result of Bernie Sanders antics. In what world did we think he had a chance? Because so many supporting him and his plan, Hillary lost where she might have won big. Now - was she the best choice? Not by far... but would she have been better than what we have now?
Voters, citizens and patriots... think hard about that before you decide who you're going to support next. It isn't as simple as picking who sounds good. You have to think a few steps ahead, as in chess or any game of strategy. Think carefully - if you pick someone, where do you think that is going to lead in a year or four? I wonder if trump supporters who fell for his rhetoric realize how stupid they were. Why would you believe that slashing tax rates gets you a better country? Why would marginalizing women and immigrants lead to a better country?
Think, people, think!!!
2
Peace People have a right to vote for the candidate they think is best. That includes Bernie and Jill Stein. If the DNC did not understand that Hillary did not have a chance that's their problem. The fact that people still refer to HRC as if she is viable gives Trump a great chance in 2020. That's the problem not people who exercised the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
1
Sure - but my point is - think harder. Voting is a right, but you have to consider what your choice means down the line. There are consequences to electing someone - think harder before selecting and then by all means, select who you think is best. Looking at the last election, I'm not sure people selected trump with much thought about what that would mean in the future. Heartland auto workers are disappointed that his tariffs on steel and cars are going to rebound and harm them, for example. Think.
Based on some of the other comments I'm reading, and what is happening generally in liberal independent media, it's obvious that the Left is in a civil war. Many liberal commentators are focusing on idealogical purity right now during primary season. They are just warming up for 2019 and 2020, when most of the discussion will become about who is getting cheated out of which delegates. Then you'll have other people who yell at you for not focusing enough on people of X identity.
This all works wonderfully for the Republicans and the Russians to drive down turnout among young voters. The result is that a minority party who is in idealogical lockstep can continue to control the country.
More losses are coming until Democrats can come up with a coherent strategy to win elections. This collection of groups that has become the Democratic Party will just let the R's walk all over them unless they all compromise and turn out to vote for less than perfect candidates.
4
It's hard to beat conservatives. They do not seem to mind holding their nose and voting. They also do not seem to be very diverse in their world views. Compassion and morality, at least how i define it, are secondary to winning at any cost. Also there's religion. Religion is very handy to get people together, even if, at times, they are actually voting against their claimed core beliefs. Democrats, on the other hand, are a rag-tag and diverse lot. We saw in 2016 how difficult it is to get them to just line up behind a candidate for the sake of the world. Even for the sake of the world! They didn't, or couldn't, or wouldn't. Honestly though, that is what a democracy should be. We may lose...but I am so glad we are on the right side of history. So if they succeed with this upending of democracy, who will be first against the wall?
2
What did Mitch McConnell say when the Dems eliminated the 60-vote closure rule on judicial nominations?
"You'll be sorry!"
The same thing might come of urging people to vote: you might not like how things work out.
4
Both Obergefell v. Hodges, and much earlier, Row v. Wade, two of the cases most feared to be overturned, were decided wrongly. Not because of the issues at hand but because they were both issues that should have been decided by the separate states and not the Federal government.
The proper decision in Obergefell v. Hodges would have been that the states have the right to set marriage standards under the 10th Amendment but that they were required to recognize all out of state marriages under the Full Faith and Credit clause of Article 4 of the Constitution.
Like marriage, medical regulation was, and should be, the provenance of the states to set. Again, the 10th should have prevailed over the newly created right to privacy in Federal law.
One can only hope that any Justice confirmed will continue the recent trend for the curtailing of Federal power over areas that should be strictly decided by the separate states.
2
The Supreme Court is only for states rights when that state leans GOP. Otherwise it is for Federal power. It will not surprise me if the court makes abortion illegal across the land guaranteeing back room abortions and deaths of women and children. So much for their hypocritical right to life stance. The Court is now partisan, not for state's rights. Will it allow states to legalize marijuana in those states that choose it or validate Jeff Session's war on anything marijuana?
1
This isn't a conservative court, it's a corporate and business court--sort of like fascist. Many conservatives think of the 50s and 60s as the good old days; how is it we've forgotten how white, Protestant families did so well by spreading the wealth (unfortunately, that did not include people of color, religious or sexual minorities).
Comparing Canada and the US, Canada has retained it's middle class--along with unions and healthcare for all. The more the unions shrink, the more the middle class shrinks. There's more than a correlation between unions and distribution of wealth.
The basis for Citizens United was that unions could be the workers voice for unlimited spending on political campaigns. How can that be done now that Union financial participation is optional?
4
Corporate and business = fascist? I guess my understanding of the term has been wrong all these years...
On my first business trip to DC I stood for hours at the Supreme Court steps hoping Justice Thurgood Marshall would walk by. 10 years later I watch Anita Hill testify during the Clarence Thomas hearing. 9 years later the Supreme Court drove a bus over Al Gore's presidency. Gerrymandering suppresses votes. and the Supreme Court is complicit. I'm surprised the Editorial Board chose not to address gerrymandering, the GOPs favorite by hook or by crook election tactic.
1
Call me cynical, but I wonder if the gerrymandering and other hot-button decision cans were kicked down the road on purpose? A more conservative court would more robustly be in favor of it (or in favor or not ruling against it). A 5-4 decision is close, a 6-3 decision is a very clear majority. Now that Justice Kennedy is resigning, it's pretty clear what a number of cases coming up to SCOTUS will be handled.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
A nation gets the government it deserves.
The United States we knew is dead.
7
The headline is succinct and accurate.
1
We must protect the rights of billionaires, corporations, mass shooters and gerrymandering political manipulators at all costs! Women, minorities and the bottom ninety percent, you’re on your own for the next forty years. Spite Trumps justice.
2
Americans don’t want to be bothered to vote, and that is why we are where we are.
Things have to get pretty bad before they will.
The question is, is this bad enough?
What would uit take?
2
I am sick of conservatives.
They kill the very ideas, and sometimes the people, that promote fairness, egalitarianism, equal opportunity, personal freedom, clean environment, better schools, and free university education. Instead, they look backwards; if they were always in power, feudalism would be thriving and is in fact fact roaring back in the garb of plutocracy, oligarchy, and even the death of democracy. Where is the Congress, or the Senate, or the President, or the justice system, which cares for common men and women? All these institutions are under the control of billionaires, soon to be trillionaires, who “bribe” these institutions to keep them from paying their fair share of taxes. Shame on them.
All due to the ideological pursuit of conservatism.
5
It's awfully late for the Times to be urging us to vote. We voted for Obama; his pick Garland didn't get a hearing, and he didn't care. Did not fight, did not do a recess appointment. We voted for Gore way back in the day; no one fought to get those votes counted. Lost faith in the vote years ago, even though, yes, I dutifully voted for Clinton but the Electoral College did not. And speaking of Clinton, held my nose to vote for her because of the limited choices we have - only two parties, both captured by the .1% with no real primary to challenge her highness. this is no democracy, and has not been for years. And you can't nag people into participating in a sham.
5
New York Times Editorial, yes, show up and vote, but I believe you will be surprised at the outcome this fall and in 2020.
4
Frankly the NYT Editorial deserves this outcome, Instead of cautioning Harry Reed on the nuclear option the Board cheered him on. Moderation was thrown to the wind, now look what we have. "What goes around comes around".
9
do you really have to trot this out every editorial or op-ed..."most damaging decisions in the court’s modern history, Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to unlimited spending in political races by corporations and labor unions."
take a look at some facts and you'll see the democrats get more from the top 100 donors....Steyer, Soros, Bloomberg, etc.
https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php
5
Regardless of party affiliation, Citizens United is still grossly damaging. And opensecrets does not count dark money.
1
Summary: for all that hard work, still failed at life. Epic fail
More important, make sure you take a like minded friend/family member with you to vote.
Apathy is a killer... especially in this next election.
1
Is now the time to move to Canada? Maybe New Zealand?
SOS! Code Red!! Calling all voters. You must register and vote this November if you want to save our Constitutional democracy from the ever tightening autocratic stranglehold of Donald Trump and his "willing accomplices" in the Republican-controlled Congress. The judiciary, including the Supreme Court, is being radicalized by a minority President and a complacent and complicit Congress. If you want a return to "simple justice" and the rule of law that favors people over corporations, your only choice and opportunity is to vote Democratic this November. Two more years until 2020 may be too late given what is happening now. It's becoming all-too clear that we are approaching the crossroads between autocracy and democracy. The choice is ours; let's vote for democracy!
2
It is past time for the low-energy, asleep at the wheel, sclerotic, so-called Democrat leaders to step up and do exactly what was done to Garland.
Plan for three years, at least. And use it as a wedge issue to separate out those who demand an alt-right fascist ruler versus those who demand a liberal democracy dedicated to free People.
Any politician who gives an inch on this must be targeted for defeat. This is a litmus test.
3
Ever since Trump got elected I have been saying that we will see blood in the streets, lots of blood. There is only so and so far you can push the majority without causing a major rebellion throughout the US. If trump and his henchmen go on like this, citizens believing in social justice and the social contract WILL go to the streets and fight the increasing fascist government.
3
The Supreme Court justices should be elected by the people. There is NO REASON to trust the President to nominate the right candidate and even less reason if that even makes sense to let the Congress be the arbiter about that choice. It is too important a position that affects the lives of hundreds of millions on a daily basis and political partisanship is the last thing that should govern the process. The President and Congress is already in bed with the top 0.01% by definition of Citizens United so at least let, WE THE PEOPLE have a direct say on SCOTUS which is the supposed checker of checkers. If you say that the average voter won't really be in a position to choose a Judge, think again. I believe 99% of the voters have a higher moral standard and an intellectual capacity than Trump and McConnell combined.
2
I wish that telling my Democrats to just show up and vote would be enough to reverse the capture of our government by an extremely conservative Republican Party. It’s not, at least not yet. First, we Democrats have some strong family business to take care of. Democrats, who are in agreement on social issues, must resolve a serious internal rift that exists among our party activists and voters over the economic justice issue. I have detected a major divide among liberals who strongly support measures, such as a living wage and a universal basic income, to bring relief to Americans stuck in the moribund middle and lower classes and moderates who believe such redistributive measures are socialistic and unacceptable. It does not help matters that this rift is largely a generational one with younger Democrats showing a much greater level of support for measures to redistribute wealth and income than older, richer and more settled Democrats are showing. This divide tends to track the support Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders received during their battle for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. If we Democrats do not close this divide soon, we will cement minority party status for a generation or more and the shape of our American democracy will permanently change.
3
"The Supreme Court is designed as a countermajoritarian institution, and operates as a crucial check in a democracy based on majority rule. Still it is hard to swallow that this court is about to solidify a deeply conservative majority, despite the fact that in six of the last seven presidential elections, more Americans have voted for a Democrat than for a Republican."
In other words, this country is not actually a democracy. And Trump was elected to push it even farther away from true democracy than it currently is. With the new vacancy on the Supreme Court, and under-representation of the places with the biggest populations in congress,the chances of repairing the damage Trump is doing is fading. We are left relying on Republicans with some capacity for decency and objectivity (like Mueller or Rosenstein or even the retiring Justice Kennedy) rather than relying on people who actually reflect the majority's beliefs. So this Editorial is right to call for a solution at the voting booth. But the Republicans will be doing everything they can to stymie democracy (by destroying the Mueller investigation for instance) in advance of the elections.
1
"In other words, this country is not actually a democracy."
You are correct. It isn't a democracy and never was. It is a constitutional republic. It was never designed or intended to be a democracy. Protesting that it isn't a democracy is similar to remonstrating with your horse for not being a cow.
1
It is supposed to be a constitutional democracy that protects the rights of minorities, not (at least in its modern form, where people who are not white and male are permitted to vote and in theory to have an equal voice) an oligarchy, which is what it was when only propertied white men could vote. That was the original constitutional republic. My point is that the GOP is trying to push us back toward that original republic, and to undo all the progress toward true democracy that has been achieved since the 1950s. If you are cool with going back in the direction of one white man, one vote, then vote for Trump.
To the Editors, Maybe you could have led this Opinion piece with the last paragraph first on the importance of voting:
For those who face the future in fear after Wednesday, there are no easy answers — but there is a clear duty. Do not for a moment underestimate the importance of getting out and voting in November. Four years ago, only 36 percent of Americans cast ballots in the midterm elections. Had more people showed up, the Senate may well have remained in Democratic control, Mitch McConnell would not be the majority leader and Judge Merrick Garland would now be Justice Garland. In the days and months ahead, remember this.
2
I am seriously wondering if it isn't time for California to initiate secession proceedings. I am deadly serious. Since I am absolutely certain that Democrats lack the spine, stamina or toughness required to fight Trump and his march to radicalize the Supreme Court, it might be time to leave a union that seems less like home and more like prison. Another arch conservative Justice on the Court will mean outright war on LGBT people, unions, the environment and immigrants and continue the push to establish a rigid fundamentalist Christianity as the Law of the Land. Californians wants no part of that ugly nation, it is anathema to us. A state with an economy larger than all but five nations, California has the vast resources required to create a brilliant new country on this globe, a shining island of freedom, tolerance and light on a rapidly darkening continent. Let Trumpandia build a wall around itself. We don't want to live there anyway.
4
There would not be so much fear and loathing attached to Supreme Court nominations if all Supreme Court justices were textualists who based their rulings on the ordinary meaning of the Constitution’s text instead of pretending that it requires “interpretation” or feigning an ability to divine the intent of the Constitution ‘s authors. The Constitution includes a Bill of Rights, but is silent on most issues. If Americans think Americans are entitled to a right not included in the Bill of Rights they should use the amendment process to add it to the list. But political party hacks have discovered achieving a 5-4 Supreme Court decision is easier than ratifying an amendment. Political parties have politicized the Supreme Court and should not complain when they get outvoted.
3
It would be wise and prudent for those who are fearful of the new Supreme Court to NOT appeal ANY adverse rulings. You know what the outcome will be on any issue important to liberals or progressives or anyone opposed to the Trump regime. Why make it easy to enshrine bad law into a precedent. It is time to legislate and stop depending on the SCOTUS who lost all credibility in Gore v Bush or maybe no one noticed - this is not the 1960s anymore.
1
If I could afford to leave this country I would. I do not wish to watch this US descend into the coming darkness. As it stands of course I will vote for progressive causes, add my voice, money and time all of which are in short supply for these things that I have believed in but now see them vanishing.
The GOP and Trumpists may gloat, but do they really want to see income inequality explode, the resurgence of back alley abortions, the degradation of our environment as those regulations are trashed, the civil and enfranchisement rights trampled of our citizens and our executive turned into a mouth piece for the most privileged?
In many ways I am part of the privileged as I am a white male though poor. But today I feel bereft for my country for what it could have been.
Perhaps in a future I will not see this country with its growing numbers of active women and people of all colors will emerge from this dark time into a renewed age of justice, but equally possible is the the final dissolution of democracy here.
2
It can get worse. Imagine if we lose Sotomayor or Bader-Ginsberg. How can this be, that the rights of minorities and women will be set back so many years? It's as though American modernity was an illusion.
1
"To what expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places….It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary....[Y]ou must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” (James Madison, Federalist No.51)
The editorial board is right: This year’s elections have unique and monumental importance. Constitutional checks and balances - as fundamental to our democracy as voting and the free press - are barely on life support, with the Republicans tugging on the plug. The risk is too dire for even a single person to think, “my vote isn’t important." And when others say, "oh, most Americans won't vote in a midterm election," PLEASE don't make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
1
The outcome of Democracy American style is quite predictable. It's a game of winning and losing at the voting booth. The rules of this game are rigged so that a minority of the total population can dictate to the majority. Regardless of one's opinion about Trump, he played the game and emerged the winner. Now the domino will fall along his whims. These are all facts, not mere opinion.
What will come next? The mid-term election will be competitive. Just as this editorial calls liberals to vote, the same will happen on the right. To guarantee themselves a conservative dominated Supreme Court, Trump supporters and Republicans will be just as motivated. The road to power for the Democrats has just got harder.
Longer term, extreme inequity, injustice and imbalance brings out the worst in human nature. Violence. Turmoil. Terrorism. Peaceful coexistence is never guaranteed. Look at what happened with Democracy at the voting booth, from USA to Turkey to Italy to the Philippines and elsewhere. Canada is not exempt either. The Province of Ontario just elected a minority government. The enabler of former drug-addicted bumbling Toronto mayor Rob Ford, his brother Doug Ford, will take control. That's how democracy works.
SCOTUS has one duty and that is to uphold the Constitution. What this article bemoans is justice that adheres to the law rather than injecting personal bias. If you want the Kim Davis' of the world to issue gay marriage licenses and the Red Hen's of the world to be able to deny service to Sarah Sanders then you need constitutionalists. If liberal bias is your objective then you are absolutely correct in saying the ballot box paves the path.
2
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out McConnell will ram through another Gorsuch-like reactionary jurist before the November mid-terms, so even if the Democrats capture the Senate majority it will be too late.
1
Dems must do all they can to delay this nomination this year. The United States is in this conundrum because of McConnell's obstructionism (actually since Day One) of President Obama, and our refusal to end the Electoral College as the arbiter of who ascends to the presidency. This is also what occurs when only half of the electorate exercise their right to vote.
Trump is not only a loose cannon. This man is a deeply troubled individual. He will say or do anything not to lose power. He is a danger to himself and thus a danger to the nation. Trump's power must be neutered, and that must be in all good haste. This country is at a crossroads. Either you're with Trump or against him. There is no greater question the country must answer.
DD
Manhattan
1
We are checkless and balanceless and we are careening toward authoritarianism. A blue wave is a matter of survival.
3
If Justice Kennedy was far from the ideal justice, who is (was), someone who only agrees with you 100% of the time. The NY Times and their Editorial Board knows what is right for the American People always, right? Perhaps we should elect the NY Times Editorial Board to run the US government?
Justice Kennedy did what any fair minded justice or judge should do, he protected the rule of the law. He looked at the law , listened to all arguments and made his decision based on the arguments and law. He did not interject his "feelings" into the discussion as other justices have.
He judged as a independent thinker and not as other justices have, blindly following the wishes of the Left or Right.
Please give me 7 Justice Kennedys rather than what we have now.
4
It’s bad enough that so few people vote, but what’s worse is that evil, greedy people who get into power use their positions to betray the country and the people as well as their oath of office.
This is treason, but these criminals are not worried that anyone will do anything about it.
And here we are, with a government controlled by Oligarchs, with little, if any recourse.
I guess it’s literally up to the people now.
Unfortunately, history doesn’t offer much hope.
2
Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:
Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world.
1
Sadly, the more chaos Trump creates, the more his base and GOP sycophants will cling to him.
1
"He was the last in a line of Republican-appointed justices who moderated some of the reactionary tendencies on the court"
Oh? I seem to recall that Justice Roberts went through contortions to preserve ObamaCare. Doesn't that count as moderating reactionary tendencies?
Or how about the case in April where Gorsuch joined the liberals to hold that a deportation law was unconstitutionally vague? Not an aberration. That kind of thing is not uncommon if you follow the Court's actual decisions.
Calling the conservative justices "right wing ideologues" is mere partisan name-calling. Would the Times call Ginsberg a "left wing ideologue"? The Times is oversimplifying the issue, thereby insulting its readers.
2
I am too old to be personally impacted when Roe vs. Wade gets overturned and fortunately have job security, make a reasonable income, and am white. So I personally will probably not suffer too much. But woe to the younger generations, all the non-white people in America, and everybody in the rest of the world. This is catastrophic! We must hold the Republicans responsible and get them decisively out of power.
1
Yes, I will vote; I always do. It doesn't seem to matter. Sooner or later liberals will have to take to the streets in order to take our country back. I will be ready when that time comes.
3
Justice was already won at the ballot box when Hillary Clinton was prevented from assuming power, after her corrupt, bought and paid for political party rigged their own primary system to hand it to her.
8
I'm just wondering, could it be possible that Senator John McCain might, in his finest hours, vote against any and all Supreme Court nominees put forth by Trump? Could he surprise us with his last fight, a decisive vote, to say NO to Trump and his infestation of bigotry and hate in our country through the power of the Supreme Court?
4
His vote is not needed. Not to mention the fact that he will not be there to cast it.
1
There is another ramification of Justice Kennedy's retirement that hasn't received much comment. The Senate will ram through any nomination before elections, of course, but not only because they want a solidly hard core right wing court.
Republicans also want five solid votes to uphold Trump's decision to fire Mr. Mueller, or otherwise shut down the investigation. And with this new appointment, they will have these votes.
Trump may well wait until after midterms to halt the FBI investigation. After all, there's no point in firing up his opposition before then. But by then the fifth vote in his favor will already be sitting on the court. After midterms, Trump is free to do as he pleases. He now has five solid votes that will rubber stamp his every action as within his "executive authority" powers.
And once Mr. Mueller has been dispatched, the coup will be complete. We will look back on this time, and understand that these "calls to vote" were breathtakingly naive.
6
The only right and power any American Citezen has ever had is the Right to Vote. A right that has been neglected for far too long, by far too many. The U.S. has long had the lowest voter turnout for Local, State and National Elections of any Democratic Country in the World, for decades. Now we are reaping the harvest of our apathy.
"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." Bertrand de Jouvenel
3
I have no doubt that Trump sees this appointment as a "get out of jail free card." I am certain that he sees this judicial appointment as a personal "fixer" appointment. He will interview each candidate personally, and the question--stated or unstated--will be whether the candidate will be "loyal" to Trump, i.e., will not support indictments or accusations from the Mueller probe or anything else coming down the pike. This has been his consistent pattern, and here is no indication that he will change.
Our social concerns about this court are warranted and serious, but the greater danger is that this appointee will guarantee presidential imperial power.
We are moving toward fascism, and this appointment is just the next giant step.
5
Lol. I'm a conservative Republican, and I plan to campaign, donate, and vote with great enthusiasm, as do my Republican friends. Trust me, this is more energizing to the Right than the Left.
4
So that's what we're down to - go vote. That's it. There's nothing else.
Too little, too late. We're done.
5
If the Court gets a strong conservative majority perhaps liberals will discover a newfound respect for the democratic process instead of trying to achieve their goals through 9 unelected judges.
2
And particularly -- show up for state-wide elections. We need more progressive governors, state legislatures, state courts, and municipal governments so that our rights won't be dependent upon our soon-to-be ultra conservative federal court system.
5
No matter, what, this will be the most important election in my lifetime, and I'm north of 50.
5
I think the more serious question is whether elections will still matter. They're already so problematic on so many levels but with fewer checks from the courts on the power of the president, we are very quickly sliding toward authoritarian rule...
7
Since the Reagan years, the loss of the South, and the waning of union power, the Democratic party has been dominated by a cultural and intellectual elite which likes to practice its sense of moral superiority through principled court actions much more than it likes to form working majority coalitions, preferring 9 judges telling them they're right over the popular support of 350 million Americans. They are elected more often as a reaction to bad Republicans rather than as a broad-based majority with an agenda. Only in 1993-4 and 2009-10 did the party have the power to make real change, and in each case as soon as changes were made, the lack of a strong coalition saw their support vanish. What allowed the Democrats to continue to function in this hapless manner was the continued success in pushing some of their agenda through lawsuits and, ultimately, the Supreme Court. Those days are now done. A new, long term, broad-based majority needs to be formed, and it can't be just about abortion, gay rights, and minority rights. That coalition isn't big enough and fractures too easily. The new coalition has to be about ideas, not about skin color, sex, and sexual orientation. The Democrats can win in 2018 and 2020 with protest votes against Trump, but to bring about real and long term change, a broad majority of Americans must be assembled. We don't have the Supreme Court to save us anymore. Let's be the party of the common man again, not the party of high priced lawyers.
6
For several years my wife spoke of the idea of getting recognized as an Italian citizen. I thought it would something interesting to have but not anything important.
Two years ago she started that process and this month she became recognized as an Italian citizen and a member of the EU.
Sadly after the election that interesting thing has become a potential exit strategy. I don’t want to leave this country I love but the ongoing transmogrification of this country will make it unrecognizable.
The only hope I see are the states like California that can move the country forward. We need to move quickly on the environment, universal healthcare, education, workers rights and voting rights
3
You are 100% spot on: every election matters. There are no off years, only elections for different offices. The way things are going, it is incumbent upon everyone who loves with the real America is, as opposed to right-wing America, to get out and vote for every possible Democrat (the only party with a real chance of winning in almost every district) the sense of balance is restored both nationally and locally. Turnout will be important. The Republican base is motivated, and the Democratic and independent liberal-to-progressive turnout must be equally or more motivated and must show up no matter what. This is doubly important in gerrymandered states and districts. Yes, third-party candidates might be a nice idea, but they are thoroughly impractical in this charged atmosphere where every vote to the left of extreme right is important and needs to be cast for the best available candidate who can win. We must do our patriotic duty and vote against the hard right in every special election, every primary, in November, and after; the future of democracy depends on it.
2
As far as constitutional protections of the right to vote, to have one's vote counted, and to have it counted no more and no less than anyone else's vote, there is no hope to be found from the Supreme Court. That is the central legacy of Anthony Kennedy, despite all his talk about human dignity. May his name live in infamy. There are left, then, only two other means to end gerrymandering so that when we vote our votes get counted: either state legislatures end gerrymandering or the federal legislature does. Democrats and independents should now put all the pressure they can on the federal legislature to end gerrymandering and return the power of the vote to the people. "Back to democracy" should be the slogan of the Democratic Party. At this point, getting back to democracy surpasses all other concerns
6
The time to vote was in 2016, I am afraid it is a little late now. If the midterm doesn’t bring a blue wave then it is time to accept that most people are okay with Trump as president and republicans to be in the majority in Congress.
5
The editorial is right on. The SCOTUS can say what's "constitutional" or not but should ideally not make law or policy. It ends up doing so when the legislature is unable to keep up with societal changes sufficiently. A "conservative" jurist will refrain from making up new law, deferring to the legislature. That's how the US was set up, really. But "conservatives" sometimes do make up policy, as in the court's decision that "corporations are people" in 1800s. So is a SCOTUS "conservative" going to make up new policy to prevent societal adaptation to new challenges, or will they decline to be legislative because of their conservatism? The decision to uphold the travel ban is illustrative: the SCOTUS simply said that "travel ban" offered by Trump passes a constitutional test - not that it is a good policy. In 1954 the SCOTUS had to determine that segregated education was not constitutional - because Congress was failing to act. On immigration today and a number of fronts including global sustainability (e.g. climate policy), Congress is failing to act. So yes - voting for Congress and Pres offices are more important than ever esp since Senate is a check on GOP appointing lifelong ideological extremists. McConnell's stunt to deny Obama's appointee was more fascist than democratic and I wish more people held him accountable for that pathetically partisan rather than patriotic act. I hear that SCOTUS appointments fire up GOP voters and not Dems - time for that to end.
2
It's important to remember, the conservative fundamentalist right does not practice what he preaches. In other words those same people who believe in a literal interpretation of the King James version of the Bible, use opioids, abortions and are not averse to taking money from the hated blue areas of the country to use to support programs they depend on like Agriculture and farm subsidies Medicaid, Social Security and infrastructure spending.
This leaves a very important what unspoken aspect of the current situation wide open. Although the political structure of the u. s. is tilting to the right Society in general as it lives in practices on a day-to-day basis is rapidly moving to the left. this dichotomy will be resolved in some way I do not know but probably dramatically because there is a tremendous consonant dissonance between what people say and what they do in this nation which, due to the activism on the right. Justice Kennedy retirement will hasten this denouement.
3
For years the left - realizing that their destructive agenda could not survive at the ballot box - has relied on the courts to backdoor this agenda;in effect, acting as a second (unelected) legislature.
As far as "blocs" go, there is no more monolithic group than the liberal 4 on the Court whose judicial philosophy seems to be:
"If I don't like it, it's unconstitutional"
3
The liberal agenda did survive the ballot box by a significant margin but it lost anyway.
2
What a way to think. For years the left has believed the country is best run by executive order and the Supreme Court. They decided the presidential election should be decided by the Supreme Court and not the voter. The believed the president should have the power to limit the use of public lands and build pipe lines not the people. Now after picking the wrong candidate and finding neither the presidency or the the Sumpreme Court under their control they resort to PLAN B democracy. A frightening prospect because they aren't any good at winning elections.
5
Dear Times,
Does the last vote at the ballot box count? Our presidential election process worked - Mr. Trump won the electoral college vote and that's the only process that counts. The popular vote doesn't matter. I'd like to think my very conscious vote against Mrs. Clinton counted.
In my opinion, Democrats need better candidates. More centered and more in tune with the rest of us. Perhaps, not self-proclaimed socialists or communists. Republicans are not perfect candidates, either. Our choice, when voting, is often to choose those we perceive as doing the least harm to the equilibrium. Or, to choose someone who will rock it to its core.
The right to vote is a cherished one. I agree more Americans should vote. But what if more did and more Republicans get elected? Will the call be to hold up more nomination processes?
2
Oh it counted all right- it added up to this and played right into the hands of The Russians and the The Right who duped you. She was never going to be this bad. the country is slipping toward authoritarian rule thanks to people like you who thought it was "just another time around".
You will not get another chance at a vote that truly counts. They will make sure of that.
1
Yes. The stakes could not be higher. VOTE. Our lives and our children’s lives depend on it.
2
Reflecting on this seemingly cataclysmic circumstance, I feel it is time to remove appointment of life-time judiciary occupants from the political world and place this profound responsibility squarely in the laps of dedicated scholars - not gotcha politicians.
Our form of law is dependent on evolving understandings and these need to be consistent along a clear growth path. If "law is indeed settled" then progression and enhancement can only occur by building on this foundation not rendering it asunder.
3
I am a native born U.S. citizen of Middle Eastern (Assyrian Christian) descent. Shortly after the November 2016 elections, my family decided to leave the U.S. We saw what was coming, and were frankly shocked that even our friends on the Left didn't see it.They thought we were crazy, that surely it wouldn't get "that bad"...
My family is extremely fortunate to have the means to leave. Nonetheless, the decision wasn't made as a "protest". Rather, it was made to ensure our safety. People like my family are now targets in the U.S.
I'm afraid that exhortations to vote are too little, too late. Votes won't undo a far right court that will rubber stamp racist, bigoted executive orders or legislation. Most Supreme Court decisions last for many decades. Thus my family would have lived with the spectre of Supreme Court sanctioned second class citizenship at best, and suffering hate crimes at worst, for the remainder of our lives.
When to leave is a difficult decision. The calculus may depend on one's gender, ethnic background and religion. Some of us have more "skin in the game" than others. We also heard the exhortations to "stay and fight". My in-laws are Holocaust survivors. That attitude, to "stay and fight", that they were citizens who had every right to stay in their homeland, cost them the lives of most of their family members. And that is a price my family is simply unwilling to pay now.
14
I received the same accusations of cowardice because I chose to not stay and fight.
To sacrifice your life either figuratively or literally may be a futile effort!
2
The US Supreme Court is now the unofficial judicial arm of the Republican Party with a majority that now reaches its desired conclusion then manipulates the law to justify them. How far the court has moved to the extreme right can be seen in all the praise for Kennedy as what passes for a moderate conservative, a man who provided the 5th vote for what amounts to the promotion of gun violence in America through Heller, the narrowing of abortion rights to deprive women of the information they need to make an informed decision on an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy (a right which now will disappear altogether within 2 years, for Red State women at least) and what may be the final nail in the coffin of worker representation by unions. Some moderate!
But let's not kid ourselves. We voted for this. We had a clear choice in 2016 and we voted for McConnell and Ryan and Trump. This is on us. And all the bellyaching and hand-wringing in the world cannot change that simple fact.
9
As a hardcore Liberal and avid student of the decisions of the Highest Court, I am hard pressed to think of recent very poor decisions by it. Citizens United for instance, however unpopular in the unlearned mind, was correctly decided within the standards of logic and reason re the Constitution and free speech under precedent.
Notice I use "correctly decided." I have my preferences as to what should go on in America (I'd love to see corporate money out of politics) but I do not confuse/conflate my preferences with how SCOTUS decisions should be made. Separating what you'd like from what must be is what makes a good juror; I don't make legal judgments based on my personal affinities.
This is why for instance I have little sympathy for my progressive fellows who rage against gun ownership - a thing clearly protected under the Constitution. This is why for instance I have little sympathy for my progressive fellows who rage against so called "hate speech" - a thing clearly protected under the Constitution.
But of course I do wish the Progressive cause to win the culture war in the long run. The lesson is: Courts change with human longevity, the Bill of Rights very much less so. You want to address a fundamental Constitutional issue that does not fall your way under simple Constitutional logic, work to change that document rather than joining a clamor of outrage hobbyists trying to get their particular way. Like most things in life a daunting task has a big payoff.
8
I don't think hard core liberal means what you think it means. Also - it seems that the words "A well regulated Militia" are missing from your dictionary as well those of your like-minded justices. No logic and reason can define a person as set of incorporation articles or speech as coming from a wallet.
1
How can we be assured our votes will count when We, the People do. not. count. the votes?
7
Bingo. Blockchain voting ledgers. Then export it to Asia.
1
What say you now Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader and Jill Stein? What say you now 3rd party purists and ‘protest voters’?
What say you now Democrat leaders who sold out the party to Wall Street an then chose to focus campaigns on culture war and identity rather than the economic survival issues that effect almost everybody?
What say you now?
8
Please.That "sold out to Wall St." trope is so misplaced. A mere shade of Wall St. Free Reign that Republicans have enabled and are doing so again.
The Dem's passed the only sensible restraints on Wall St. (Consumer Credit Protections Act/Bureau, Dodd Frank, Etc.).The Republicans dismantled them the second they got into office. The "Progressive" tropes like yours that have faint basis in reality cost the election. No, the parties are not anywhere near the same or equally as evil.
2
This independent voter, who is repulsed by the Democratic Party and voted for Hillary Clinton even though I thought she was a terrible candidate has a lot to say. Independent voters saw these problems coming a long time ago, and started speaking out about it. People such as you dismissed us "purists" then and still do. Apparently, being against corporate rule is irrational. You want to point fingers but you never want to consider how your denigrating of dissenters helped elect Trump. The flaw in your position shows up in our brief post. You lecture those who oppose the Democratic establishment, and then proceed to lecture the Democratic establishment for selling out to Wall Street. Well, it appears those "purists" were on to something, doesn't it?
Perhaps it's time you tried listening to those who explain how our parties have betrayed our democracy. That is how we can start to build a better one.
1
The Supreme Court is not a tool to uphold values that Democrats want. Its role is to interpret the law. Just because the law does not mean what you want it to mean does not mean that the Court is doing anything wrong.
7
I agree with what some of the other commentaries. Despite previous railings about court activism, it is clear the conservative activism is just what Republicans desire. With a solid conservative majority, liberal legislation will have no chance to survive.
The decision to strike down a law that requires emergency pregnancy counselors to share information about abortions was ideologically driven and incongruent with the allowance of laws that compel medical professionals to use pro life speech. It seems likely that the Supreme Court will cease to be an interpreter of law and become an un elected enforcer of ideology.
The President recently expressed his desire to do away with due process. I fear that the new court will be happy to strip the protection of the law from individuals according to its whim and bilious hate.
7
To require that such counselors advise of abortion, while fighting requirements that abortion providers inform women about adoption, is inconstant and thus ideological. Law was properly struck down.
1
It's time for Democrats to stop panicking, think out of the box and put their money where there mouths are. If Democrats honestly believe that having a Supreme Court with a solid conservative majority is a disaster, there IS something they can do about it. If and when a President is elected who would nominate a liberal judge for a seat on the Supreme Court if one was open, Democrats should make a generous retirement offer to one or more of the conservative judges on the Supreme Court at that time. I believe that every judge has his/her retirement price. Just get wealthy Democratic donors to pony up whatever it will take to open up a seat (or two) on the Court and solve your problem. No need to worry about how this might affect the dignity of the Court or the independence of the justices since Democrats (and Republicans) apparently are already convinced that the Supreme Court is basically a political institution.
1
Thanks for the reminder! I will be sure to go out and vote Republican, so the shift of the federal bench toward Constitutional conservatism can continue.
4
Until an "originalist", or the supporter of the same, comes out and stands for the elimination of the political parties or at least their functioning in the US government, I will call them out as frauds just as with the other right wing marketing labels that mean the opposite of what it is.
Hint: parties are not mentioned in the constitution. Not once. Parties are not mentioned in terms of majority or who has control of the House or Senate. George Washington himself warned of “the baneful effects of the spirit of party” as he left office.
Extra points to the "originalist" who can see the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," or finds that a "person" must be born and not crafted from incorporation papers, or that speech emanates from the mouth, pen, or keyboard, not the wallet.
High points to an "orginalist" who can read "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" and not define it as We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect fleecing of the people, establish arbitration panels, insure domestic Immunity, provide for our common defense from Taxes, promote the Corporate Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Money to ourselves and our Shareholders, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Corporate States of America...
3
The result of a Republican Supreme Court will be the further Balkanization if the US. Some states will outlaw abortion, marijuana, gay marriage, gay rights, affirmative action, gun control, fossil fuels, evolution, contraception, etc. and some states will not. We already have income equality vertically but we have deep inequality geographically as well. A Republican Supreme Court will exacerbate these differences and the country will split again along the Mason-Dixon Line.
6
"Some states will outlaw abortion, marijuana, gay marriage, gay rights, affirmative action, gun control, fossil fuels, evolution, contraception, etc. and some states will not."
When I was growing up, they called that the "laboratory of the states" and most people thought it was a good thing, even if some states would go trying to make pi = 3.
1
The sky is not falling. The beauty of our system is we can change it if we like. We can pass better laws that leave less area for judges to interpret this goes for both sides right and left. My advice would be to live your life worry less about Trump, his impact our lives is trivial truly it is. I encourage everyone to go back and look at past editorials from the Times go back 30 years, they are almost always wrong in there conclusions. So best bet is don't have much to worry about.
6
Hah! Don't you see they are eroding the norms of "Our System" as we speak? Your thoughts are hinging on the fact that the rules will always be the same and the playing field level to allow for change either way. Those days are fading fast.
Voting rights are being stripped away. The very process of voting is being called into question by the Right even being brought to court recently. Gerrymandering. The President even bringing up indefinite term limits (which the Republicans would obviously give him if they continue to reap this kind of feast, taxes, environment, education). News Flash - this ain't your parents America.
2
At the Ballot Box?
You must be kidding!
After all, there is still a question of legitimacy regarding the last election and everyone is putting their faith in this cycle, while Democratic Leadership has done absolutely nothing to even address the deficiencies. They have not even presented it as a matter of policy or take it to court in order to question the outcome.
You can bet that if these results happened to the GOP, their leadership would have been all over it and flooding the courts.
Not Pelosi or Schumer!
Not Democratic Leadership!
After all, how many times has our election process been invaded by a foreign power?
In point of fact, I am not sure what we are running on, other than being the anti-Trump and if that is their only policy statement, then expect Trump to win again.
Or they want Mueller to do the job that they should have been doing for themselves.
Kennedy's retirement was expected for months and Trump will push through a Conservative SC candidate. Do not expect help from a Corker or a Flake or a Collins or anyone from within the orbit of the GOP since this is part of their DNA.
If you want a chance at winning in November, then it is high time that we stop living in our past and start fighting for our country's future.
We are in desperate need of new blood and new ideas at the top of the food chain.
Pelosi and Schumer have been completely ineffective in this time of radical change and they need to step down. Or force them out!
Otherwise, we lose!
5
Brilliant! Let's all grab our voter photo ID's - and just in case, supporting documentation - and, presuming we have not been expunged from the rolls in some variation of "the Ohio plan" - head out to wherever our polling place has been moved to in whatever gerrymandered district we've been shuffled into - and stand in line for several hours (since early voting has been curtailed) in order to strike out (sic) for justice at the ballot box.
5
You are right about all of that, and it is terrifying. But if you mean to say that it is therefore hopeless to encourage voter turnout, then you are wrong. If we could increase turnout by, say, 10% over the last midterm vote, the Dems could take back the House AND Senate.
1
Depending upon one's location, an accurate if personally weak moment on my part. So do as I do - Resist, join or begin an Indivisible group, adopt an anti GOPer candidate and start going door to door for him or (more likely, perhaps) her - from now until November - or doomsday or that matter
Just remember, when you vote, either for President or a senator, you are also voting for SCOTUS justices. They are inextricably linked.
6
The article lists a litany of precedents that will come under attack but they are just window dressing to the various Cults that feed the Pubs. The one Right the Pubs will attack in full force will be our Right to Vote and to have that vote matter. If we let them hide behind the window dressings they will wage war on voting by a thousand cuts.We know the tools of war they will use, gerrymandering, voter suppression and disenfranchisement. And there will be knew , or actually old, ones. When Jim Crow starts appearing at the polling places again the list of his suppressive tools will be long enough to touch the floor and color won`t be at the top anymore but it will still be there. I imagine protesting will be high on the list. So yes Vote like your life depends on it but also VOTE like your Right to VOTE depends on it.
3
"The only thing needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." (apologies to Edmund Burke if not accurate.)
Voting is the key. To those who believe their vote is not important, remember it was less than 80,000 votes, spread over three states that gave us the nightmare that now sits in the Oval Office.
7
I refuse to surrender to depression and apathy. Yes, we have challenging times ahead. But there are too many good people in this country to give up on it. I will not give up.
7
Seems to me that as Robert Mueller opens his morning paper, he sees that DJT may be able to install a new Justice that can undo all the work he has done this past year. (Can a sitting president obstruct justice ?....can a sitting president be subpoened ? can a president pardon himself? ...) I think we should get ready for a summer of unprecedented turmoil as Mueller unleashes his indictments. ( prior to the president and the GOP confirming a new justice; who the president surely want to swear loyalty to the president. )
3
That place is the ballot box. So show up and vote.
I doubt if it would occur to the other side to do the same, for all the brains it takes to check a box. This feels like nothing more than just another one of the endless solicitations for campaign contributions that fill my mailbox every day from every liberal cause and candidate on the planet.
Sure hope those right leaning voters are watching what is happening in this administration’s watch. They may may be wanting religious ideology and desire for American whiteness to grab hold, but we are also seeing unions lose some power and business gaining more power. This means less worker protection and less competition - wage and benefits stagnation. And we are seeing early signs of efforts to reduce social programs, like SNAP and Medicaid.
So those steel mill jobs may come back (maybe, some), but not necessarily with a strong steelworkers union. Ditto for auto industry. And many of those deep red states are among the poorest in our nation, and surely need some help thrive along with California and NY - they should be very thoughtful about how they vote.
2
"we are also seeing unions lose some power"
Public unions. Even a Teamster pays taxes and doesn't like the golden pensions of unionized public employees at his expense.
1
Why. oh why, did the Democrats pushed one of the most disliked and corrupt politicians to replace Obama is beside me. We are paying the price, and will be for decades. She was scorned and rejected in 2008 so what in God's name were they thinking running her? This after Obama had promise hope and change in 2008 and did nothing of the sort. The image of Schumer during the campaign saying "For every blue-collar Democrat we will lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two to three moderate Republican in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Michigan." Or Nancy Pelosi being asked by the Face the Nation guy about Democrats been wiped out at every level government what new direction is she going take and her answer, 'I don't think people want a new direction. We lead with our values."
These are the ones I hold responsible for this mess we find ourselves in. They led us into a ditch.
7
Completely overlooking Clinton's and Trump's popularity going to into the race and the effect of the right wing swift boat smear machine to generate the dislike.
As Trump won we can only conclude she wasn't corrupt enough as someone so much more corrupt won. Or that she couldn't match his "locker room talk" for lack of a vital piece of equipment, or didn't spew enough hate or calls to violence at her campaign appearances. Or that she didn't appeal to the animosity and hatred of others as well as Trump.
Completely overlooking Clinton's and Trump's popularity going to into the race and the effect of the right wing swift boat smear machine to generate the dislike.
As Trump won we can only conclude she wasn't corrupt enough as someone so much more corrupt won. Or that she couldn't match his "locker room talk" for lack of a vital piece of equipment, or didn't spew enough hate or calls to violence at her campaign appearances. Or that she didn't appeal to the animosity and hatred of others as well as Trump.
2
As shocking as this turn of events are, more shocking was the election of Trump, when the ballots of 3,Million Americans were not counted, because of the electoral college.If ever the Democratic Party controls the Senate & the Congress, as well as the White House, they must dissolve the Electoral College, which is the only way the majority of Americans can be represented. As long as there is a majority of theocratic, reactionary Supreme Court Judges, our country will never evolve to it's potential greatness.As it stands now, the majority of the ballots may not be counted, and it is possible that we will continue to be lead by bigots & reactionaries ..
7
This editorial is written solely to liberals - urging them to vote.
Are conservatives allowed to vote? How about centrists - like me and Justice Kennedy? Are we allowed to vote?
Maybe we need a substantive litmus test. If you believe in Roe v Wade and gay marriage and unions and affirmative action and hate Trump, you can vote. Otherwise stay home.
3
Steven Roth, of course you're allowed to vote. And thanks to gerrymandering and the Constitutional language regarding Senators, your vote counts for far more than mine does.
4
I keep waiting for the Democratic Party to support citizens instead of illegal economic migrants.
I know their long-term plans require creating a new majority out of illegal economic migrants. That will work in twenty years. But, today, they need citizens to support them.
The Democratic Party addiction to illegal immigrants is ensuring they lose elections. This has profound implications on our country- right now.
My heart weeps. My soul weeps. The Statue of Liberty weeps. But all that weeping will not win elections.
I am afraid that the Democratic Party may have to support policies that help all citizens- popular policies that are not tailored to specific races. Policies that help *gasp* working class people including *double gasp* white people.
I will continue to weep. Can our democracy survive if the Democrats start caring about citizens instead of illegal economic migrants? Sniffle.
3
You missed your chance. Last Election was the whole ball game and too many people didn't see that.
A "Resist" bumper sticker will change everything and make you feel better perhaps.
2016 was no time to vote for unelectable candidates and split hairs.
There is a HUGE difference between the parties, as we are now seeing, the and Bernie Bros. etc. probably still don't get the memo. As "Evil" as the made Hillary out to be the false equivelance of "both major parties are the same" progressive thinking just made every cause they stand for a distant dream now. She would have been the only check and balance on what is about to happen. Some very simple rights are about to be stripped from many people.
7
Thank you for your comments. Received an email from a Bernie supporter yesterday whose message was in so many words this is all Hillary Clinton's fault. Bernie could have beat Trump. He voted for Jill Stein. Need I say more.
1
80% of Bernie Bros voted for Hillary (12% for Trump), so Clinton would not have come close to the popular vote without them.
The millions of Bernie votes for Hillary were anti-Trump votes - which means she did not win the popular vote, not even close.
Because the head-in-the-sand Clintonistas (and mainstream corporate media) did not support Bernie, who would have won, they gave us Trump. And now these losers blame Bernie, exactly as Trump always blames everyone but himself.
The weak-kneed moderate Democrats afraid of positive change need to clutch their pearls and join the Progressive movement if they want to be part of the future. Otherwise there will be no future.
Foolish to say that the Progressives - the party of the future - should join the losing party of the past. No one is going backwards, especially not now.
1
America has never been the country I wanted to love and respect due to its obsession with capitalism and its passive aggressive attitude toward humanitarianism.
I realized this as a teenager when I interviewed for a job selling door to door and was confronted with the deceitful manipulation of my employer. His cynicism was transparent and permanently stained my attempt at patriotism.
Immorality like the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq only solidified my perception of America as a powerful source of evil.
When I retired in 2000 I leapt at the chance to become an expatriate in europe where a balance between capitalism and humanity is at least given an opportunity to exist.
I encourage like minded Americans to consider saving the rest of your lives by voting with your feet. You'll never regret it!
Michael Kittle
Vaison la Romaine
France
4
Kennedy is a selfish man, retiring at a time when a divisive ignoramus will choose his replacement. And he has reprehensible votes in his record: Gore v. Bush, Citizens' United, and yesterday's Janus case. So I say: good riddance. I refuse to let despair take over. Ocasio-Cortez won yesterday, and I'm celebrating that. Democrats, listen to what she's saying. Either bring your fight to help all Americans, or leave office. Obama and the corporatist Dems let us down. They should have pushed Garland through. In 2021, I like the sound of 11 on the Supreme Court.
4
Dear Jill Stein and Sanders-only Voters,
Not only does this presidency and cabinet belong to to you but the next 25 years of Supreme Court conservatism. Please don't you dare moan and complain as US institions steer away from liberal ideals- elections have consquences and you need to own them.
Sincerely yours,
The silent majority(many of whom didnt vote so have no moral high ground of their own)
5
The Democrats have be tough. They must not allow a Trump nominee a hearing. Yes, it's best to take the high road, but when faced with cheaters (as the Republicans are), the cheaters will always win. For the sake of American women, the environment and so many other rights and freedoms we hold dear, it is time to fight fire with fire.
5
Right. Follow the precedent set by McConnell in 2016. No hearings on a SCOTUS nominee during an election year until after the election & the after the new Congress is in session.
1
"Show up and vote" is a nice sentiment. It really is.
But what about all the other highly illegal things the Republicans do to prevent that?
Gerrymandering, preventing certain parts of the population from voting, and outright fraud in the elections of George W. Bush. These are the things they get away with. Democrats and progressives have to start playing hardball. No mercy.
They have to do everything they can to prevent Trump from putting another SCOTUS judge in place. Every dirty trick they can think of. Anything that delays the vote. And then I'd like to see the GOP complain about it.
You cannot be civil to bullies.
If Trump puts another justice in the Court, that will seriously impede this country for decades. Ninety percent of the US population will have no power.
We have to stop old, dying white men like the Koch Brothers from turning this country into the neo-Fascist state that Trump really craves.
2
A harsh lesson in civics for the generations that will be governed in the inhumanly long shadows of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. You may have voted, but what did you do to get your like minded friends off the couch? The future is only yours if you take it.
4
Come on Editorial Board, we know y'all aren't interested in equal rights, you want designated groups to have special rights.
4
Special rights = people not like me having the same rights as me.
Yet another reason to vote Democrat in the mid-terms!
4
Democratic senators should go MUCH farther out with their starting “position” with the “President”. Something like:
No meetings or hearings with a “nominee” until either (1) after the conclusion of the inquiry into conspiracies to commit treason, or (2) after the next Presidential term begins in 2021.
The political ground? The possibilities of an illegal as well as illegitimate Executive.
4
Once again, say I, American democracy drew its last breath the morning of Jan. 20, 2017. Every day that Trump remains in office is just one more nail in the coffin's lid. Consider the American Experiment in suspended animation for now. If the elections this November and in 2020 fail to reverse the slide into ultra-right fascism, then burial can take place. At that time, if didn't vote, you helped dig the hole.
2
Saying that Mitch “stole” the SC seat is really beneath the NYT Editorial Board. There are checks and balances in our system and if you don’t like it, see if you can amend the constitution.
4
Stupidity is rampant.
Mexico is about to elect a populist with a Congress majority. He will redo, for the bad, all the institutions in Mexico.
Trump won two years ago. He's got like 45% of approval. He can give people a little red meat and they'll vote for a republican congress.
Ms. Merkel is about to get unseated in Germany because of her tolerance to immigrants. A tolerant and mindful person getting unseated by anti-immigrant groups.
I really do not understand what is going on in the world anymore. The greatest generation worked a lot to give the boomers a better world.
Boomers seem dedicated to leave millennials a worse world.
1
A coherent Democrat message would be nice.
5
I really wish I could feel some hope right now, but I can't. The Republicans have cheated all the way to a dictatorship. With evil minds like Mitch McConnell and his ilk at work, I don't see how anything can stop them now from taking all the power there is to take. God save us. There's plenty of blame to go around, but mostly I blame the people who whine about things but don't vote. Now, thanks to them, we are stuck with the most vile, dishonest, disgusting hypocrites in our nation's recent history. I see nothing but darkness ahead for us.
3
Can it be done?
It's unlikely that the SCOTUS will uphold any law harmful to a white man with a good job.
They just did-repeal of the Janice decision
1
The repeals of Roe v Wade is so important on the road to diminish women's rights for two reasons, in my opinion. With women under more male control, they'd seek to force a return to the 1950s, where white men took the jobs from others upon returning from WWII. With more women out of jobs, white men can fill them. Then, controlling contraception and abortion, they can have their dream of a higher white birth rate in order to stop and reverse the rise of ethnic minorities and whites can remain in power.
Some holes to this theory. Women are not going to take this sitting down, the good wages for white men in the 50s are not coming back given corporate greed and the plummeting influence of unions.
We will end up with a more define, effective plutocracy of rich white men. As long as they brainwash other whites, they will perhaps not be enough unity to push them off their golden pedestals.
Welcome to American style apartheid and fascism. If you don't think we can go back in time to this degree, google photos of Afghani women from the 60s.
Mexico and Canada will end up building walls.
2
Editorial board, have you ever considered the voices of Middle America? Instead of saying 6 of 7 of last elections went Democrat. Why don’t you check to see- which way Middle America has voted in last 7 elections.
3
They divided the country red and blue and although their calculation didn't consider the electoral vote subscriptions rose.
Besides New Yorkers are to provincial to care what mid - westerners say.
When the GOP loses political power, they will start screaming at how imbalanced the system is. 45 does that already" It;s rigged." Fox and the radical right keep up the steady drumbeat of made up controversies that don't exist with fascist type solutions .
Yes, vote. Make sure every single one of you out there understands that you must vote, and send these corrupt swamp kleptocrats back under their rocks. until my son and his generation can cut them down to size. and keep them in the jails where they belong.
3
Kennedy has gone down in a blaze of shame.
7
Now the Republicans can show how crassly hypocrical they are by rushing thru a nominee before the midterms
I’ve just about had it with our country
2
Is it just a coincidence that the advertisements running on this page during my reading are for condo properties in Canada?
The byline is, "The [choice] that changes everything".
3
How seriously a country takes Justice can be judged by how much access the powerless have to a hearing and a fair judgement. Trump's contempt for the rule of law is a retrograde step that I find very worrying. It has never occurred to me that a POTUS can alter the entire carefully constructed foundation of law upon which justice stands. I wish Europe could help reverse this trend but any remonstration from us seems to make Trump and his appointees more determined to tear up the constitution. I think about my friends in the US a lot these days and particularly about their children. They are going to have to be very clever and innovative to outmaneuver this playground bully and his gang. Good luck.
3
This comment will be little read.
Progressives lack understanding of the box they have built for themselves over the decades. With all good intentions they have since Brown v. Board of Education looked to the Supreme Court as the societal agent of change as opposed to the branch’s original Constitutional design as the locus of stability. William O. Douglas arrogated to our unelected, lifetime elites the right to decide based upon perceived penumbras. Progressives thought that they would always control the Court and thus using this Means, with all its consequences, to achieve their Ends would be without cost. The chickens have come home regardless of how much progressives duck responsibility.
Now the Times turns to the ballot box and Congress as the change agent. This is a returning to the original Constitution’s three branch of government design. Good. But there is no way out of avoiding the Costs of the prior choice. The for-the-time irresistible flow toward resisting change continues. In time the resistance will crumble. When, how, and at what cost in pain and even possibly blood is yet to be determined.
3
Do you know what the country was like in 1787? Those men lived in a different world. They thought based upon what they knew and what they knew was the histories up to 1787. If they knew what we know today, who knows what they would design and what they would not?
When they designed our system they did not know how it would work. This was a human design and endeavor and they knew that it might need to be changed. They deliberately wrote it to allow for changes.
I think that the originalist theory is thin at best. I think that it is just a ploy to justify undoing liberal interpretations of the Constitution.
Yes, everyone must vote and demand that their rights as citizens be protected.
The unbelievably unjust Gorsuch appoiontment__when President Obama's choice, Merrick Garland should have been appointed instead, was the doing of an extreme GOP Congress.
It didn't help that the Supreme Court in 2004 found in favor of George Bush against the winner of that election, Al Gore.
Now with gerrymandering being preserved by a warped Court, will our shredded democratic republic have a chance at reining in the extremists addicted to power?
The injustice is infuriating.
6
Anyone who thinks Susan Collins is going to stand up to Mitch McConnell--in the end, that is, not during the theatrics beforehand--simply will never learn and probably needs some cognitive testing.
2
It took several decades of lying propaganda and criminal aggression from Republicans, and inept, feckless shilly-shallying by Democrats, to get us where we are. Those who have faith in one election alone to solve problems of the current magnitude, good luck. Some of us will be organizing from the ground up, before, during and after the elections, no matter the outcome.
3
Simply put, these are the continued major consequences of the disastrous decision by the incompetent Democratic party to nominate Hillary, the worst presidential candidate in US history.
2
Voting has been and remains the only answer in local, State, and national elections. It is Congress who can fix some Supreme Court decisions apparently the consequence of inflexible 18th century thinking of SC constitutional “originalists”. In my view, this is bias on the part of the court as it is purposeful. Limiting the scope of cases they decide to hear, disingenuous statements in majority decisions (declaring racism over, for example), and refusing to admit facts and evidence have all benefitted Republicans electorally and Republicans are not revising or reforming the relevant laws.
2
If some people (liberals) think this is bad, when Ginsburg goes, it will be doomsday. Best to prepare for the worst....because it's coming, like it or not.
1
No. Justice is when Trump matches Obama's two SCOTUS appointments. You apparently don't understand what justice is.
It's occurred to me that perhaps with the Supreme Court tilted so far to the right, without even a window of light into progressive or enlightened policies, that the US might consider becoming more like the European Union; united under one currency, with a set of bylaws that all member states must abide by, economic benefits for its members, but still having self-government when it comes to social policy. I know now that I will never, ever in my life travel to certain states, because it would feel like going to a foreign, hostile area. (Also, I'm afraid of being killed.) I know now that this Supreme Court is not there to weigh its options, to think of the common good or to even uphold the Constitution (they pick and choose), I look at Washington and I see it is being run by corruption, lies, dehumanizing policies, willful trashing of the environment for personal gain, and business as usual for Trump. This is not my country. It pains me to say that, but a bright light is that in NJ we have an enlightened governor, good policies taking shape, respect for the environment, education, families and sane gun laws. Why couldn't we join into a confederation of like-minded other states and follow the EU example? The state courts would be the highest courts for each member state.
2
So much hand-wringing from the too-little-too-late New York Times editorial board, which, through its relentless "both-sides do it" narratives, has played right into the hands of the GOP tyranny and helped bring us to this catastrophe in the first place.
If the board ever comes out and says, "the left has been right about the right all along" (thanks, driftglass), they might deserve some of our respect.
2
Two papers in one!
"Senate Republicans killed the filibuster for Supreme Court justices last spring on their way to installing Neil Gorsuch"
This very same editorial board in 2013:
Democracy Comes To The Senate
“Republicans warned that the rule change could haunt the Democrats if they lost the White House and the Senate. But the Constitution gives presidents the right to nominate top officials in their administration and name judges, and it says nothing about the ability of a Senate minority to stop them. (The practice barely existed before the 1970s.) From now on, voters will have to understand that presidents are likely to get their way on nominations if their party controls the Senate.”
3
This is a difficult way to learn a lesson. Progressives who didn’t vote in 2016 because Bernie wasn’t the candidate or voted for the third party in protest made an emotional decision rather than an intelligent one. Their choice put Republicans in charge. It perhaps felt good and right at the time, but in fact was short sighted. So, here we are ...in a place we did not have to be. It’s a difficult way to learn a lesson.
8
On the one hand: Trump Republicans have made no secret of their desire to destroy voting rights. The National Voter Registration Act is living on borrowed time, partisan and racial gerrymandering will only get worse, and, there is no limit to the number of creative ways to suppress and discourage the vote. Were Democrats to again control the presidency and Congress, every single legislative program and policy will be struck down by the far-right Supreme Court. On the other hand: if voting rights aren't destroyed, perhaps Democrats can campaign on constitutional amendments to further protect Americans' right to vote, or prevent presidents from using the office to personally profit, or abolish the electoral college. I also see no reason why holding a constitutional convention has to be a right wing tactic. Of course, these ideas are longshots, but they at least offer reasonable ways of injecting some new strategies into our fight for justice and to preserve our democracy.
1
In its opinion, the Supreme Court dismissed the importance of labor peace. They will surely rue their short-sighted decision.
While I do not advocate violence, I can confidently predict that this ruling, along with others whose effect is to aggravate America's income inequality, will lead to outbreaks of violence unseen in this country since the labor unrest of the 1930s.
Indeed, it may become worse. Today, perhaps only historians remember "Bleeding Kansas." That in turn produced John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and shortly thereafter a polarized nation went to war with itself.
This nation now appears to be on a similar path, and nothing persuades me that we are trying - or even desire - to avoid it.
1
The Kennedy retirement in many ways is game, set, and match for the forces of regression commanded by Trump and his puppeteers. The midterms have suddenly become much less significant, since regardless of the results this administration will clearly be shifting to a judicial strategy. They have the cases lined up, they will bring them, and they will win them.
Let's be clear on this, a win for Trump here is a loss for America. We will see rollbacks on all of the rights that real Americans have fought for in the last hundred years and more - labor rights, civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, and social justice will all be on the chopping block. (Religious freedom will be protected, but only if your religion of choice is on the approved list, and only for certain freedoms.)
And we need not look for a "pendulum swing" to save us. There is no reason to suppose that any of the remaining right wing justices will leave the court in the next ten years, and in that time they will certainly do their best to undermine everything that we love about America. In all likelihood, there be will be no justice in the Supreme Court in any coming future worth planning on.
The coming times will be ugly.
9
In any other time we would be celebrating the departure of Kennedy. Many of his rulings were atrocious.
Our liberties are under attack and the path forward has many setbacks. But it will eventually get better. Not much we can do about this one, but people need to get out and vote. Elections indeed have consequences.
3
To all NYT readers: I cannot emphasize how much I agree with this editorial. If we do not fight for fairness, truth and compassion in our government, we will lose it.
Writing on Facebook and Twitter will not make any difference.
Vote, and urge others to vote. It is our only answer. For those who do not vote: you will have silently agreed to all of this.
To those who wish to to do more: support house candidates.
NJ, NY, PA and CA districts are literally up for grabs. Great candidates are running. Support them!! Work for them!
Please!
6
Most Americans have been asleep at the wheel. Yes, we need to vote in larger numbers, but merely voting is not enough. There are too many people who mindlessly vote a straight party ticket without even thinking about the issues. Others just mindlessly repeat talking points. Trump and his judicial nominees should be seen as a wakeup call. We need to take the time and make the effort to learn about important issues, learn candidates' positions on those issues, and vote accordingly. We also need to regularly let our elected representatives know that we are watching them. Maintaining democracy takes work. Barack Obama's most important statement during his presidency was, "Democracy is not a spectator sport."
6
Kennedy, always a conservative, must also be a Trump Republican. Otherwise, he would have realized the chaos that his retirement is going to cause and would have waited until next year to hang up his robes.
In making his exit now he ignored the fact that major changes in Senate may occur in just five months. So much for the Voice of the People!
3
Maybe this precisely why he is retiring now.
As long as the Supreme Court makes decisions one approves of it is easy to imagine that it consists of nine sages of infinite wisdom who spending their days poring over ancient manuscripts in search of the absolute truth.
In truth, the nine Supreme Court justices have values, concerns, and goals, that they read into the often vague wording of the United States Constitution.
From the Brown vs Board of Education Decision of 1954 to the Roe vs Wade Decision of 1973 liberals got used to having the will of the majority over ruled by a higher will - namely their own.
Liberals are about to discover, if they have not learned all ready, that the Supreme Court is a loose cannon that can role in any direction causing much damage.
The Tenth Amendment can be used by a reactionary Supreme Court to overturn most of the economic, environmental, and civil rights legislation passed during the twentieth century.
The new Trump Court will probably have the sense not to overturn Social Security and Medicare. Don't count on it. American society is going to become much tougher, much meaner. Trump supporters have made it clear that that is the way they want it to be.
For decades I have disliked the Supreme Court as an institution. I would like for its power to be restricted by a Constitutional amendment.
1
We are supposed to be a nation defined by the will of the people yet we have increasingly allowed ourselves to be defined by 9 unelected people with jobs for life and then we lament they have too much control. Stop whining and let's get on with governing our country. There is an underlying premise that the court is supposed to agree with our personal position. Why did we have to wait for the courts to rule on gay marriage rights while we continue to allow workforce discrimination? If you disagree with affirmative action, then make it the law of the land. Want to strengthen collective bargaining - make it so. Too long we have allowed Congress and the Presidents to be politicians for their own account and not leaders. If the two sides can't find common ground, vote them out.
1
Supreme Court has approved gerrymandering by the Republican Party. Tell me again how Congress will protect us and be our voice? If our votes don’t count by any branch of the govt, just what action do you recommend in a dishonest, rigged regime?
1
That justice -- or any other goal -- is something to be won at the ballot box is something Democrats have been missing as a guiding principle for a long time: In general elections, mid-terms and on the floors of Congress (where we've failed to produce the votes needed to legislate policy). Court cases, even SCOTUS court cases, are fragile and not nearly binding enough on some people's behaviors...
There has been lots of work being done by lots of people to try an elect the right people, but Democrats have had an outsized faith in the courts as shadow legislatures.
Let's say JFK came back to life and you told him that 2 men or 2 women could go to any city hall in the country and get married. I don't think he would be shocked because he would think this was a great joke you were making.
Get a Democratic president and veto-proof Senate. Impeach Gorsuch and any Trump nominees. At these hearings, ask no questions, just get to the vote. Confirm Democratic judges in their place.
4
I'm a card carrying liberal, but this is so partisan as to be propaganda. You're following them into the pit of death panels and other manners of hyperbole, and throwing your credibility to the wind. Most conservative in American history? That term is as we use it is maybe as old as the Goldwater era, probably really the Reagan era and even then it's morphed, it's a meaningless statement and what I would expect it out of a Democratic party press release. Do better. The real truth is through most of American history seats went unfilled on the court during times of split government through clogged systems, and whether you liked his methods or not, McConnell held until an election in case he received a mandate, which he clearly did. The means to fix this, without whining and delving into hysterics is to seize it back. This entire mode of thinking obscures the fact that Dems have been getting their butts handed to them with rare exception in the legislative branch for almost four generations straight, and now it is even worse at local levels. That's how we went from the Warren court to today. Any implication otherwise it a total copout, and it means Democrats have learned nothing. You have to win elections, and to do that, you can't preach about being right. You have to form a coalition and hold it for more than 4 years every 20. PERIOD.
2
It is hard to believe that this is happening in America. It's almost as though I have been lulled into a false sense of security by our traditions and norms. I have had a sense that "it couldn't happen here". I think I'm still brainwashed into believing that, despite all appearances, the Republican party is patriotic. Never mind that they have supported and enabled what could well be a Manchurian president (and they know it https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-le.... The horse has left the barn. We are under the thumb of traitors who put their party over national security. If they can't be imprisoned, and I guess they can't, they have to be voted out.
4
This has nothing to do with Anthony Kennedy and everything to do with Bernie Sanders. It didn’t take half a brain - much less a crystal ball - to realize that this is exactly what would happen if Trump won. Heck, we had the absolute crime of Merrick Garland not getting a hearing as evidence of what was to come should Trump win. But the Sanders crowd fell for every Wikileaks and Putin play for 18 months running up to the election. How many times in these very comment pages did you hear a Bernie Bro tell us Hillary and Trump were the same? Well, now the entire country is paying a dear, dear price for their stupidity.
The election we needed to win was 2016. I tried in vain to convince anyone on the left I could that. But their dearest wish was to see Donald Trump elected. And here we are.
There are some very sorry days ahead for liberals in this country, and they brought it on themselves. The saddest part is, they haven’t learned a thing.
2
When the next truly constitutionalist Justice is confirmed, the civil rights of all Americans will be much safer.
I am talking about the First Amendment right to say things that aren’t politically corrrect.
I am talking about the Second Amendment right to own and carry whatever weapon you like.
You see, the liberals had their chance. Liberals ran Chicago, DC, Baltimore, New York - all of these places have become synonymous with politicians signaling their wokeness while their citizens die in the gun-free streets. Normal people are leaving these places in droves.
Normal people are leaving the left in droves too, for the same reasons. Nobody wants to be the next Baltimore. You’ll see in November.
2
Liberals are not leaving the party in droves. Don’t believe in a Fox News fantasies.
Liberals won the majority of votes in 2016.
An outdated archaic Electoral College handed the presidency to a minority of voters.
The only way Republicans win is to cheat. Voter suppression, purging voter rolls, closing polling places. GOP simply can’t win honestly.
2
I learned yesterday that, as of this fall, I will most likely never see another balanced and relevant Supreme Court in my life. It is now on a hard trajectory to becoming the lap-dog 3rd stool of a government formed in the vision of Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway. As well as a vindictive and spiteful chief executive.
But the editorial was about voting. Just wondering --- how are those 2016 protest votes feeling? Feel good? Feel empowered?
5
"With Kennedy Gone, Justice Must Be Won at the Ballot Box".
Justice must always be won at the Ballot Box. Depending on five out of nine enlightened old men and women to save Democracy for the other 300 million of us is folly –not to mention very dangerously lazy.
2
"Just us" Richard Pryor in a comedy routine about what he found when he visiited prison looking for justce. Access to the ballot is largely a matter of state rather than federal law.
Despite the 15th Amendment's "guarantee" of voting for the formerly enslaved Africans, Jim Crow's separate and unequal legacy required passage of voting rights legislation in 1965. Paid for by the lives of Viola Liuzzo, James Reeb and Jimmie Lee Jackson and the bloody attack at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma Alabama.
In Shelby County v. Holder the Supreme Court of the United States gutted part of the Voting Rights Act that found a continuing need for the legislation based upon it's assertion that it disagreed with the accuracy and timeliness of the bipartisan George W. Bush reauthorization. Boldly answering a question that no party asked nor expected. Ending DOJ preclearance of any change in voting rights eligibility in states with a history of voting rights discrimination.
Black voter deterrence,difficulty and suppression state legislation followed in the wake. The malign Confederate States of America twin sons of Alabama, Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr. and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III have been whistling "Dixie" and saluting the " Stars and Bars" ever since. And the fascist bigot Donald John Trump , Sr. is the resurrection of Jefferson Davis. Except the rebels have chosen the Union over a violent secession.
" Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"
1
Well, the NYT Editorial Board certainly did its part to keep him here. If I were Justice Kennedy reading the oh-so-beautifully written and not-at-all unfairly snarky and inaccurate "Please Stay, Justice Kennedy. America Needs you" they were so proud of penning back in April, I'd TOTALLY want to stay just to please these absolutely impeccable paragons of humanity.
...In all seriousness, I wonder if there's any editorial board anywhere that can collectively produce a piece worth reading. So far, I've yet to find one.
1
There is much one could say about what is wrong with this editorial. But let me just comment on one point, by way of example. The editorial contains this statement " Senate Republicans killed the filibuster for Supreme Court justices last spring "
Yup, the Republicans did.
But only after the Democrats fired the first shot by doing the same thing for judicial nominations other than the Supreme Court, when the Democrats controlled the Senate in 2013. This is an editorial, not a news article. Nonetheless, it is odd that the Times neglected to mention this very relevant fact.
3
We always needed to win at the ballot box. The Courts evened out the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of the minority that can result in a representative democracy.
Right now, the gerrymander, the electoral college and basic premise of the Senate - two Senators regardless of population - have tilted us to a model of one acre, one vote - a tyranny of the minority based on the acreage of the district, not the population. The House, which is where the majority is represented, does not reflect the actual make up of the country. And safe districts combined with zealots at primaries are pushing us to the fringes.
The Courts were supposed to rein in those fringes, to pull idiot lawmakers back from the brink. But once you have a key idiot hold an election for ransom by refusing to consider a sitting President's nomination, it all goes out the window.
So hold on America, you are in for a rough ride.
1
Feel that right wingers? That pressure on your neck? That's the weight of very expensive shoes worn by the corporate interests who brought us to this point.
That glee you felt at being able to deprive others of their civil rights is going to evaporate as you become nothing more than serfs at the mercy of your corporate masters.
Enjoy your dirty air and tainted water, forget about affordable health care. But hey it's not all bad, at least you'll still have a gun to cuddle with and someone of color to hate.
7
Folks, this is all about power. It's about the financial ecosystem that sustains the GOP, its wealthy personal and corporate backers, and their lobbyists, to the benefit of all of them. The more power they amass through legislation and judicial decisions, the less remains for the mass of the people and the "general welfare", as the constitution puts it.
The ballot box is ultimately the only recourse, and it's no accident that the right to vote is being increasingly constrained in ways that proportionately hurt people most likely to vote for Democrats. Unless we, the people, turn out in massive numbers in November, we will lose even more of our power.
The vote - use it or lose it.
2
Correction:
"Had more people showed up, the Senate may well have remained in Democratic control"
The Senate was under _Republican_ control in 2016. That's why McConnell could do what he did.
The notional Separation of Powers in America is becoming a complete joke.
2
Well, woman and minorities had better wake up, get out and vote because they have every thing riding on their future and the future of their children who will be victimS of a court that will do the bidding of corporations and religious fanatics. GET UP, REGISTER AND VOTE. Your future depends and the Senate must be taken. A defeatists attitude is NOT ACCEPTABLE. To put down your effort to defend you belief and position is not acceptable and you stand firm in your core beliefs. This is not over and stop the doomsday nonsense.
1
And we already know the 2016 election was compromised in multiple ways at multiple levels by a hostile foreign government, we're nowhere near the historical point of looking into our own illegal electoral corruption, and we long ago (and this confirmed) the immoral practice of the powerful gerrymandering the vote to achieve their goals.
In short, it's over. We are not a self-governing nation. We are a people subject to a criminal, authoritarian regime.
When will you quit lying and tell the truth, NYT?
2
Justice was already lost at the ballot box. Vote all you want but ultra-conservatives have already won the game. They outplayed a timid, feckless Democratic Party that refused to truly stand up and fight for its constituency (a MAJORITY of Americans, by the way) for the sake of "decency" or "playing by the rules." The ballot box isn't going to save us now. It is already too late. The Republic is now owned by those that hate anyone not of their kind. Civil war or total capitulation are the only visible options. Which do you think the Democrats will choose given their track record? One can only hope the planet's inevitable destruction from climate change will accelerate so these zealots can see the horror they have sown. They will have inherited the earth, a scorched, barren wasteland brought about by the very species able to stop it. We get the government (and world) we deserve.
1
Gonna be a long, long, long time before America trusts progressives with what they once had: unfettered, unscrutinized license to implement their agenda. The problem, of course, is that everything they prescribe for America is government-centric, wonky, tone deaf and completely apart from the world most people live in. The market may not be perfect; but it's more perfect than government. By a COUNTRY MILE!
1
Great piece! Show up and vote. Sanity might lose the fortress of Supreme Court, but we can still take back the country starting November.
Show up (and encourage others) and vote!
5
Yes the safety net is gone. Lazy liberalism is over. Coastal blue staters will have to persuade in the court of public opinion. There's much work to be done.
America, there goes your next element of "checks & balances". With a soon to be ultra- conservative Supreme Court , an insane egomaniac in the WH and a seemingly paralyzed Congress - what is left?
With gerrymandering in tact, with voting rights under assault in some states, with the outdated electoral system , with PACs and SUPER-PACs being as influential as they are - you better follow the advice given in the opinion: show up and vote! Otherwise you will soon not recognize any more what you considered your democracy.
If the November midterms don´t flip Congress I really fear for the sanity of the US.
3
As the electorate in this country is moving left, we can't have a court that's extremely conservative.
Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million and barely won by 77,000 votes in 3 states.
He's also under investigation for conspiring with Russia to rig our election.
He should not be allowed to pick Supreme Court justices until the investigation is complete.
4
Wake me up when Democrats stop blaming everyone and everything except Mrs. Clinton for her loss to Trump.
And definitely wake me up when Republicans stop scare-talk about liberals wanting big government to control everything. I have news for you, guys: Big Money controls everything, and you seem to be just fine with that.
In the meantime, as has been suggested elsewhere, elect a progressive Congress, then pack the Court. Nowhere does it say the Court has to be nine members.
2
The anti-constitutionally seated and therefor illegitimate Republican majorities have repeatedly proven themselves to be actively hostile to traditional pluralistic constitutional democracy.
Five-four decisions by Republican majorities lack legal authority and therefore deserve neither respect, nor deference, nor obedience.
The Republicans on the Court on are partisan warriors devoted to establishing authoritarian corporate feudalism. As in Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, the corrupt Republican majority will make it almost impossible to conduct honest elections and restore the democratic processes.
The last pretenses of constitutional governance in the United States are collapsing. Tyranny of a minority has replaced American democracy. America soon will be the world's largest police state.
2
Democrats thought that demographic change meant they they could put up the usual lousy candidates and end all Senate rules. They did so by nominating Hillary Clinton who barely escaped prison for her negligence and avoided key states thinking California, New York and Chicago was enough. Unfortunately running up the score in three states garners no advantage. Harry Reid, also thinking America had turned Left for good, abolished the filibuster. Now Republicans are about to have solid conservative control for a generation. And with RBG liking very frail, Trump will have another nomination soon.
1
The only hope for relief in any time frame short of forever, is to retake the legislative and executive functions of government, then amend the Constitution to 1) establish term limits on Supreme Court justices to 21 years, with one 9-year extension if the justice is approved by a majority of voters in a national election, and 2) limit the maximum number of justices a president is allow to nominate and have seated during his/her administration, probably no more than three, if not only two.
Absent any other reasonable solution, the US, already an autocracy, will soon see despots the likes of Idi Amin or Rodrigo Duterte.
1
The storm that is howling against a balanced thoughtful approach to Governance and our Judicial Sysytem has been approaching for some time. With an appointment of the next Justice by President Trump, all facets of our daily lives will be controlled, arranged, and dictated by one myopic view of the world. This is clearly NOT what co-equal branches of government looks like .
Retiring Justice Kennedy and the Majority tipped their hand on how to approach suits that may end up in front of the Supreme Court. With the recent rulings on The Colorado Baker and Janus, the simple argument is " my individual Constitutional Rights have been violated because I am forced to partcipate in an activity that I may not agree with". But it is deeper than than that argument. These decisions are not about what may be a benefit for the majority. The Roe vs Wade fight, the funding of Public Schools, may shift to "how you are spending my money " via a tax. "This taxation, while legal, is in violation of my religious beliefs." This is how the Republicans are dismantling the ACA. They have already cut back important provisions, such as 100% coverage of birth control prescriptions.
At the core of our government is business over individual. The millions of dollars being raised, unchecked, to undo laws that protect the poor, protect against voter suppresion, protect health (medical and environmental ) and individual rights. The new face of Fascism.
1
The author's obvious opinion is that the SC should make law instead of Congress.
What is truly sad and alarming is the now obvious flaws in our Constitution that reveal we never had three separate branches of government and that simple majorities in Congress could make our Judicial Branch a mere extension of a political ideologue. And because moderate political parties have morphed into the extreme politics of the Freedom Caucus and the Progressives a lot of folks are going to be really unhappy about the state of our country most of the time. The majority of Americans will suffer under this regime. Someone really thoughtful once said that a good supreme court justice would possess independence and clarity of thought. This is no longer a qualification and with the exit of Justice Kennedy it is inevitable that my country will become a fascist state. The Constitution is not as strong as we were believing all these years and the integrity of our Supreme Court is in the final throes of it's demise. I am angry right now and that is the second stage of grief.
1
Register everyone to vote when they get their drivers licence. The right to drive this country back to Democracy!
Vote by mail. Easy!
1
When Trump was running for the Republican nomination, I thought it was funny. Trump was known as a page 6 lothario, interested only in himself. When he received the nomination, I was still laughing. He looked and sounded like a fool, and it seemed impossible that anyone with even a scrap of intelligence would actually vote for this con man. I wrongly assumed that everyone across the country would see what we in New York saw long ago, that Donald Trump was an orange clown who was morally and financially bankrupt. Aside from all that, he was married three times, a nonstarter, I believed, with evangelicals. I was wrong. Donald Trump is morally bankrupt, but so are those who cast their votes for him. And the destruction he has caused, and will continue to cause, will plague our nation long after his departure. I am truly frightened for our country. That one man could destroy everything in just over a year should illustrate the fragility of democracy, and force people to take their civic responsibilities much more seriously.
4
As long as Fox "News" is viable as the propaganda voice for the Far Right we are doomed. Millions of voters believe what Hannity et al tell them and vote accordingly.
3
Justice won at the ballot box... Until it isn't anymore, and we have reached that. The majority of Americans voted for HRC, not DJT. But, Republicans have rigged the system to favor themselves, the wealthy and corporations who fund them, leaving The Middle out. Along the way, their ideology has shifted the government further to the right than the majority of Americans. When the ballot box no longer responds to The Middle and they /we can no longer engage in our democracy, there will be demonstrations, upheaval and violence.
2
Overall Kennedy voted of the wrong side of democracy and history in most of the crucial cases. The difference is he would at times cast his vote to more moderate and reasonable decisions. A new justice would be an arch conservative and roll back the progress made by the nation 50-100 years.
2
Kennedy was appointed by conservative President Reagan. Liberals were expecting doom and gloom. That didn't happen. The man was an independent thinker who applied the law as he saw it.
By the same token, I doubt that Kennedy's successor will spell the end of civil rights and other causes near and dear to America's heart.
2
I hope you're right, but reading the President's short list of candidates (every one a radical ideologue) I suspect you are wrong.
2
Justice Kennedy, I'm sure, was a decent person and an excellent jurist. He was truly a swing vote on the Supreme Court. However, I'll always remember his part in Bush vs. Gore and Citizens United, which unleashed corporate oligarchy and income inequality. It's ironic that Justice Kennedy was nominated by Reagan, who was not a friend of the unions (remember the air traffic controllers standoff?) If there is one thing the corporations and the richest "one-percent" always hated, it was unions. The Roberts Court did its best to continue Reagan's legacy against the unions by empowering corporations to fight unions to extinction. This recent decision of the Court that allowed public union workers to reject paying dues while enjoying the benefits of union collective bargaining agreements was another blow against American unions.
The Roberts Court has sounded the death knell for unions.
The Republican party has traditionally favored (1) cutting taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, and (2) destroying the unions. These goals have brought the greatest degree of income inequality to the United States since the Gilded Age.
A country divided by income inequality cannot endure.
3
Two Democrat-nominated justices are over 80. Neither will retire as long as they can take a breath, and some justices have been vigorous well into their 80s. But anyone who thinks five arch-right justices is a nightmare should ponder six. Expanding the court is likely to return as a proposal if Dems take the White House and Congress in 2020, and it should. The Constitution sets no number for justices.
1
Americans who believe in tolerance, inclusion, government services like Medicare/Social Security, and the four fundamental freedoms FDR proposed in 1941 face the same dilemma women faced in the 1874 when the Supreme Court ruled they did not have a constitutional right to vote. Republicans have stacked the court with people hostile to individual liberty unless it's the liberty for wealthy and religious extremists to impose their will on others. Americans face a decades long campaign at the ballot box to undo a generational shift in the courts that will be hostile to individual liberty and freedom from want, fear, speech, and religion. We can do it, though.
8
The Republicans have been playing a long game. Years of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and packing the Federal courts with staunch Conservatives have led us to where we are now: GOP control over the White House, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. For Democrats, it will only be through a long game of winning elections that any balance will be restored.
6
I believe the Constitution when interpreted as intended in far closer to conservative ideology than progressivism. Equality is equality under the application of the law, not equal outcome. Justice is not hyphenated.
The mechanism for changing the Constitution arguably should be the amendment process, not ideologically stacking the courts to effectively change it through missinterpretation
In the nomination process our governorment should at least give the appearance of selecting judges who as best they can attempt to follow the understanding had by those who ratified it. Those who made it law. That requires the evidence of meaning comes from documents prior to ratification of the Amendment or base constitution.
2
Conservatives are the ones "stacking the courts."
1
Perhaps they are "stacking the courts" with contitutionalist which is exactly what a court whose purpose is to follow the Constitution should have.
Whether you agree with the principles of the Constitution or not, pretty much everyone in influential government offices takes an oath to it and violate that oath if they go against it.
"Of course, it would take only a couple of Republican senators — say, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, both of whom are retiring and have been very critical of Mr. Trump, or Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have supported abortion rights — to force the president to pick someone who at least approximates a moderate." WHAT is the possibility that these 4 senators will recognize the danger we face and start to caucus with the Democratic senators? What is the possibility that these 4 senators, along with perhaps John McCain, would recognize that this is their moment to be Americans, not Republicans. Corker and Flake have already left the Republican Party so why not take the next step and take the control away from Mitch McConnell. What would it take to persuade them that this is their moment to be American heroes, to stop the Koch/Uline (that is intentional) machine from taking over America. I apologize for quoting the New Yorker in the NYT: "The ruling on Wednesday didn’t come about by accident, however. It marks the culmination of a decades-long anti-union campaign by conservative groups and billionaires tied to the Republican Party, such as the Koch brothers, the Uihlein family, and their allies. By funnelling money through tax-exempt organizations like the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the Liberty Justice Center, and the Center for Individual Rights, these ultra-wealthy people have helped to finance a series of legal attacks on labor unions . . . ."
2
Your headline says it all. Vote. Those who marched on Washington the day after the inauguration need to march to the polls in November.
6
Anyone Democrat who stayed home in November 2016 because Bernie did not get the nomination or who voted for Jill Stein redeem yourselves. Vote in the Democratic primary, yes, but vote for the Democrats in the general election in 2018 and 2020. It is going to take a long time to repair the damage that you have done. And get your friends, parents, children, cousins to vote. It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
6
To sour Bernie supporters who didn't vote: elections have consequence. If you people pull further left this round, you are going to lose again.
5
The first step is to understand what is happening to our country. How serious it is. How deep the damage goes. How difficult it might be to reverse it. And how ruthless and focused Republicans are in their political blitzkreig. You don't parry a ruthless and unethical opponent by wringing hands or calling forth their better natures. When a bully is pummeling your face you don't reach for Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
The Trump juggernaut has conspiracy theories about 'the elites', the illuminati, the Muslim invasion, the Globalists. 'The Liberal Narrative', an Alinksi rulebook, Statism, the Secular Humanist Ploy.
Its no conspiracy theory to understand that the goals of Dominionist Christians to merge political power and Jesus while pointing to a non-existent conspiracy of Sharia Law is a serious threat to civil rights , the thirty year goals of the Federalist Society to mask a march towards partisan political goals through judicial appointment while most of the time twisting an ideology of originalism or textualism to mask their ultimate partisanship, the Republican Party that hides behind phony trickle down economics and a scribble on a napkin to shift wealth from the middle class to the richest and most powerful...is a ruthless, long game ideological assault masquerading as something ethical and throw away HILLBILLY ELEGY, take off the hair shirt and fight a ruthless power play with the same kind of ferocity and focus, and attention to political result that they have.
11
Are you sure your instruction to vote is the solution to the nation's need for justice?
"... It sends a stark message to the tens of millions of Americans who have long turned to the court for the vindication of many of their most cherished rights and protections: Look somewhere else.That place is the ballot box.....Meanwhile, count on more rulings that, like Monday’s decision upholding racial gerrymandering in Texas, give states the green light to cut back on voting rights….."
1
There is no acidence that Kennedy resigns now just when
Trump will be exposed to the Mueller investigation into the
Russia conspiracy to attack American democracy.
This was planned to deflect away and diminish the investigation reports, and to deflect away from children being snatched and put into internment camps in cages.
The media is getting obsessed by this, and questions are being asked about the Democrats ability to stop this
massive right wing shift in the Supreme Court.
Yes they can.
The Democrats must put their politics up front and in your face, and tell the people of America the truth - this is all about
democracy verses autocracy and a right wing rule for decades.
Also, Trump is under criminal investigation and should not
be nominating anyone, or making any decisions until
the criminal investigation has finished, and those who are
prosecuted are jailed.
This is all very smelly, as the stench of political corruption
is being unfolded.
5
" you can forget about new or enhanced protections for gays and lesbians"
They are very well protected, almost sacred cows, in our society. They will be fine.
3
There's simply no evidence supporting this statement.
2
You know, when the founding fathers framed our constitution and provided for lifetime appointments to the supream court, people only lived to about 60. A lifetime appointment in those days was like a dozen years. Now people, and Supreme Court Justices live into their 80’s, making their tensor decades long.
Just something to think about.
2
One must also remember that the founding fathers never contemplated "judicial review", the power of the Supreme Court to strike down laws. That was invented by Justice Marshall, and was denounced by Jefferson as a power grab. Because of Jefferson's denunciation, judicial review was not used for decades, until southerners used it to strike down reforms of slavery, and robber barons used it to block government regulation.
Our nation and our democracy are dying a death by a 1,000 cuts.
2
Imagine our distress when he nominates Roy Moore.
1
I'm done relying on Susan Collins and Murkowski- they voted for that god awful tax bill so fool me once. We are officially under the tyranny of minority rule folks and we will eventually turn into one of those dystopian worlds of the future like in Blade Runner. And how on earth can the "ballot box" save us when it is rigged against anyone who is not a Straight White Male? I'm moving to Canada, America feels like a waste of my time.
2
Not off to a good start after a solid win in the Bronx by a candidate who would do very well in Venezuela.
3
Why do you think it's okay to slander a solidly progressive candidate?
1
Since when does she represent all districts?
1
Citizens must decide what type of society that they want,
and what kind of America they want?
The Republican 5 will change American civic society
by attacking all the civil rights won since the 1960's,
with attacks upon women's reproductive rights,
and all the laws that protect African Americans
from a Jim Crow racist society.
The people using their vote to combat these attacks is what democracy is all about.
Vote and protect democracy.
1
For NY Times's editors Neil Gorsuch is an the ideologue, but Ruth Ginsberg is an idealist. That is a problem. NY Times's editors may think that majority of American people support abortion without any control, gay rights sacrificing all other rights and asking for voter ID is voter suppression, and those rights can be preserved through ballots. But realty is different. Majority of Americans do not support partial birth abortions and abortion for killing baby girls. Majority of Americans may tolerate gay rights, but do not want to promote that life style and do not want to sacrifice their basic rights to promote gay rights. Majority of Americans do not find asking for an ID is voter suppression in this country with diverse population at this age. So, let the people decide through ballot what is just and what is not just.
4
A majority of voters cast ballots against your agenda in the last Presidential election.
2
Is it time to start looking at real estate in Canada?
2
The Democratic Party has been rendered both impotent and irrelevant—even before Trump. It could still win an ever fewer number of state elections, but nothing nationally. More importantly it is the President and the Supreme Court that now make the critical decisions in America, and that Court is chosen by right wing special interests. Six devout Catholics and three Jews deciding the fate of a country where church and state are supposed to be separated.
Maybe after the massive defeat Trump will impose on democrats this fall the Party will dissolve itself. Then each of the minority groups can independently fight to attach themselves to some part of the Republican power base in order to get their needs met. Better to understand that they are all alone. Or maybe some states can convince republicans to allow them to secede and become independent Hispanic countries. Or, more likely, they can whine for 20 years.
Democrats did this to themselves. They can claim victory
2
Now, liberals may begin to understand why Christians voted for Trump despite the seeming hypocracy. Reconsideration of Roe vs. Wade now has a remote chance of being thinkable. For Christians to have voted for Clinton would have been even more hypocritical than ever. Christians are smarter than a lot of progressives think.
1
Those you speak of are not Christian at all. By supporting this President they have actively embraced evil.
3
Opposing abortion is not a Christian position, it is a political position. The bible does not teach that abortion should be illegial. Please stop pretending Jesus spent his time talking about about abortion. He spent his time talking about helping the poor, something Republicans and Evangelical "Christains" don't really seem to care much about.
2
It's all over. Time to go.
God, it hurts.
2
Thank you, New York Times, for your strong, clear call to arms.
You may now return to using your front page to focus on the critical issue of Kanye West's choice of snack food,
4
“Well, Doctor Franklin, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
For the first time in my life, I’m not sure we can keep it.
6
Because mob rule is always better than 9 wise justices.
Of course I will go out and vote, and vote republican down the line!
1
Here's my prediction who Trump will select to replace Justice Kennedy: Jeff sessions. Trump gets a conservative and will choose a sycophant to head the justice department to bring an end to the Russian investigation. That's called a two-fer.
2
That's disturbingly accurate.
1
Why do we still believe that our (unverifiable) elections are fair? Trump is so excited to meet with the man who helped install him as our president and we're talking about "justice must be won at the ballot box?"
Good Luck with that!!
Capitalists are investing in private prisons and mylar blankets, getting ready to profit on detentions in the name of national security.
Meanwhile, "real Americans" who vote Republican will be just as clueless as real Germans who just didn't know...
And Democrats are worried about being civil to the fascists calling all the shots!?!
It's time to stand up, brave Americans.
9
What are you people whining about Gerrymandering for? Gerry was a Democrat.
Do you think members of Congress will ever accept their responsibilities? Or will they all just keep doing whatever it takes to get reelected?
"...the court will easily become the most conservative in American history."
Could the Newspaper of Record PLEASE discontinue the referring to right-wing radicalism as "conservatism"?
6
Your definition of “Justice” is a decision that matches your ideology. And you scratch your heads as to why all but the coastal states wanted a change in 2016?
Why do you think a majority of voters opposed your candidate?
2
And all of this damage by a majority leader who blackmailed a president into keeping quiet about the Russian influence that led to the installation of a deeply corrupt, potentially treasonous occupant of the WH who, while under a cloud of suspicion and investigation, will change the face of the Court for generations. The tyranny of the far right wing minority is cemented.
3
Everyone of you better be ready to hit the streets. Mitch McConnell cannot confirm a Supreme court radical if there is 10 million people on the streets with torches telling him no.
5
And McConnell and his ilk get offended when people scream at them in a restaurant? Those who have no decency do not deserve to be treated in a civilized way. LET your anger be heard. Make their lives miserable forever more.
3
Don't expect a partisan hypocrite to be consistent ... except to be a consistently partisan hypocrite. Elections having consequences goes both ways, remind McConnell in November.
1
Republicans have been ruining the country since at least Reagan. Get rid of them.
2
Mitch McConnell needs a taste of his own medicine. The Democrats cannot allow the GOP to ram through one of their conservative candidates prior to the mid-terms. "We should let the people decide", said Mr. McConnell. OK great. Let's hold him to that standard he applied to Merrick Garland when it was Obama's turn to pick a Justice.
Filibuster. Stonewall. Shut the place down. Whatever it takes to make sure the GOP doesn't get their win. Turnabout is fair play.
1
Agreed. For almost 40 years I've supported a woman's right to choose. Not because I'm pro-abortion, (who is?), but I didn't want to return to the days of back alley, unsafe procedures. I always thought such a personal decision should only be made by those directly involved. People like me don't think the government, religious scolds, or patriarchal men who think they know better, should be able to make our life choices. But what about all the women who have voted for anti-abortion politicians who have brought us to this point? Sometimes I wonder why I bother. If women, and under 30 voters really care about this issue, they need to turn out and vote.
6
If we were truly a functioning democracy, we would encourage people to vote, not deploy all kinds of means to prevent and discourage them from voting. We should use the Australian example to make voting a civic duty and mandatory.
We should remove the nuclear option to confirm Supreme Court justices with a simple majority, and bring back the 60 vote threshold, so that we get justices who would be more acceptable to the entire nation.
5
With the court being all about partisanship and ideology, why not just put a computer with a very simple algorithm in as SCOTUS? There is no need for independent thought or study of the constitution or history or law. It is just about which party they represent. No need for intellectual pursuit anymore.
3
The ballot box doesn't count. Politicians like Hilary Clinton manipulate the ballot process with "super delegates". And legislative bodies do what THEY want, not what you elected them to do. Witness the 2015 Ohio ballot initiative for legalizing marijuana, which was defeated 65 to35%. The Ohio legislature legalized it anyway! And politicians like John Boehner jumped on the marijuana revenue bandwagon! I am sure that there are many more such examples. Bottom line: Politicians are greedy, bottom -feeding self serving scrum, just like most lawyers.
2
Gobsmacked the so-called free worlds constitutional checks & balances fail on so many levels over and over again.
Bizarrely the structure of the USA Supreme Court compromises justice itself. Go figure.
'Had more people showed up' is the biggest downfall of Americas democracy.
A simple adjustment would be compulsory voting. Compulsory voting enables freedom, rather than the usual ratbags stopping people from voting.
The only people who can repair Americas demise are Americans.
3
Repeal the 17th amendment. Keep the Supreme Court as appointments.
Trump doesn't need Congress. Republicans won't do what he wants, but he gets his way without their help. The Supreme Court will never oppose his executive actions, and therefore Trump is omnipotent. His power is absolute. He can do whatever he likes, and there is absolutely nothing that any American can do about it. If Democrats somehow win in November, despite the overwhelming evidence indicating that they will lose badly, Trump will simply declare the election results invalid and his Supreme Court puppets will concur. Don't cry for Kennedy. He sold our country down the river years ago. The destruction of our republic was set in stone the day he took the bench. If Trump wasn't around to deal the final blow, some other dictator would finish the job.
3
We are all entitled to our opinions, obviously, so I will not criticize anyone else here. But I wish to point out some facts so you can take a fresh look at things and see if your opinion is on more solid ground.
1. Mr. Kennedy did not "lead the way in recognizing the equality and dignity of gays and lesbians", he was the 5th vote. The other 4 were already ahead of him there. As were most of urban and suburban America, most Fortune 500 companies. His vote was consequential, yes, but hardly leadership.
2. He was the 5th person in all of the other cases you list after that too. Maybe the first of the Conservative justices, even the only one, but he was still the 5th one. I say this not to bash the man, but to remind all of us that once you are a Justice in the Supreme Court you have to stop being Conservative or Liberal, and just be objective and nothing else, that is why it is such an exclusive position and why they have lifetime appointments. Mr. Kennedy by resigning now has shown he was a political animal all along.
3. He was a wishy-washy guy, so is Justice John Roberts, and that has become a virtue these days. The other Conservative judges are so ideologically rigid that not being a predictable shill is seen as refreshing and tempering.
Please stop seeing "the good" or "the silver lining" and other palliative pablum the "liberal" media comes up with regularly. Just speak truthfully and objectively, maybe less harsh than me, but still honestly. Emotions are secondary.
2
I like the decisions of the Supreme Court.No need to compel federal employees to contribute via the unions to the Democratic Party if they don’t want to.You might disagree with the trAvel ban decision as I do but it is the right of the president to control emigration.A judge that you think is nominated by a republican for conservativ e leaning might again turn out to be a moderate,The Times editorial board is hyper partisan.
1
"Had more people showed up, the Senate may well have remained in Democratic control, Mitch McConnell would not be the majority leader and Judge Merrick Garland would now be Justice Garland. In the days and months ahead, remember this."
Too late -- the die is cast. Buckle up.
1
I am so angry and disheartened. Our Supreme Court is about to become the next season of A Handmaiden's Tale, joining a useless Congress and a Manchurian Candidate president whose loyalties are for sale to whoever strokes his fragile ego the most (in this case, ultra-right wing Evangelicals, white supremacists and Vladimir Putin).
In moments like this I cannot help but contemplate how much our Democratic leadership has failed us. (Yes, Democratic). So smugly sure that Clinton would prevail in 2016, they lead a dismally inefficient counterattack when McConnell abdicated his constitutional responsibilities by not holding a hearing on Judge Merrick Garland in 2016. The GOP was ready to to move heaven and earth on the flimsy chance Donald Trump prevailed, and the Democrats rolled over and played dead, like they always do.
Why didn't Obama merely issue an executive order? Why didn't Garland just show up to work one day at the Supreme Court, arguing that no Senate vote = no opposite to his nomination? Sounds childish, but so is what the GOP did. This would have triggered lawsuits and a lot of legal drama, but it would have actually made some noise and perhaps even forced the 8 SCOTUS judges to weigh in on McConnell's inaction.
Once again, Democrats came to the fight with a squirt gun while Republicans showed up with napalm. I am so, so sick of losing like this. We need new leadership that actually understands how to fight for this very fragile thing called democracy.
7
Gerrymandered districts, purposefully crafted to boost GOP seats. An Electoral College that elects a President due to antiquated and racially-motivated laws that gives a minority rule over the majority. A stolen SCOTUS seat and now this. If there wasn’t cause to end this failed “experiment” that is the United States and start over, I don’t know what is. This is the end of America.
2
Dear GOP,
If you can’t learn to co-exist and Repeal Roe v Wade, we promise you that WHEN we Democrats come to power we will repeal:
1) The Second Amendment
2) The Electoral College
3) The equal weight of all states in Senate and instead allocate it proportionate to the population...
WHEN, not If. Because:
1) We ARE the majority in terms of 2016 elections’ popular vote
2) your electoral demographic will be a minority soon in terms of US population.
We have learned to fight back. And, we will never forget...
8
The loss to a right wing, Trumpist majority is a clear threat to American democracy. We must all vote while we still have a chance to regain our nation.
1
White supremacy was never going to go away without a final infantile fit. It's just too bad that the timing on this is so bad. This could have been a trying and painful few years as the country transitions from rural-white-male rule to an actual representative democracy. Instead, it's going to be more like 10-20 years of almost-reconstruction-level political fighting.
The immoral minority is going to force us to meticulously organize and vote to insure basic liberty and justice for all. I guess there are worse things than having people relearn and practice their civic rights, but it sure is annoying that the other side thinks they are entitled their disproportionate and unearned advantages.
I believe in paying for what you get. Conservatives--with their love of white privilege, male privilege, and (of course!) inheritance--believe that they should continue to get something for nothing.
5
What makes you think it is "final" before "going away"?
Scary part - they’ll pick someone to serve as Justice who is pretty young. We’re doomed. Our kids are doomed. Our grandkids are doomed.
Congress can only do so much, even if it’s blue.
4
The Hillary defeat continues... I hope the DNC has learned its lesson not to meddle. Bernie would have won.
4
Absolutely! The post election analysis, the vast majority of it, and polling indicate you are correct. And we also see anecdotal evidence of this all around us - from Bernie Sanders continued favorability ratings to the win by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
Before HRC 'warriors' become caught up on protecting the cult-of-personality I have to mention I like Bernie because he has ideas and is thinking boldly in a way to address inequality he is sick of the status quo and that resonates not just with progressives but with some Trump voters. All of them? Of course not. But enough of them.
Who doesn't like this? The establishment, the establishment is deathly living in fear of removing the status quo that gives them power and funding and feeds their egos.
Did you see what Nancy Pelosi's response was when asked about the Alexandria Ocasio Cortez win? Google it if you can - it was, quite literally, almost sad. And the sorrow is felt not just by people like us but by the country and it's everywhere to see.
2
Seriously, stop with the "Bernie would have won" - he wouldn't have.
1
Gram Lucy .....born 1898..... a flapper , a suffragette, a voter.
She lived with a coercively controlling and abusive spouse “ till death do them part”.
She voted and felt in control and power at the ballot box.
She never drove a car, lived in a farmhouse with no hot water or central heat until 1955.
She was a homemaker and a wife and never had her own income stream. But she voted.
I spent a lot
of time with her as a kid.
Voting day she would contact the local registrar and someone from town would pick her up for a ride to vote.
She would wear lipstick and rouge. Her best dress.A pillbox hat and a pair of white felt gloves. I have those gloves .
So I will vote in November.
If Roe v Wade is overturned and men in power continue to stamp out our rights here and everywhere ;women here will rise up together NOW. Women who chose abortion or choose to birth their babies will be unified in this struggle. We all have personal stories and beliefs about when “ life” begins.
But men and holy books and governments keep promoting themselves through Coercive Power And Control.
Trump and Mitch are the poster boys for men that control and abuse.
If voter turnout isn’t close to 90% midterm I am burning grams felt gloves in a symbolic gesture of our oppression.
Anthony Kennedy chose his departure as a means to restore intellectual honesty and moral integrity to the SC. It is obvious to anyone with two or more brain cells that he did this to avoid the trend in liberal politics to appoint zombie justices like Sotomayor and Kagan. He as well as the general voting population has become wary of unsound progressive thinking as the basis for American law. He correctly anticipates that the problems presently consuming the Democrat Party, with its tacit support of socialist policies and fascist groups, will not serve the country well in the future . The fear mongering promoted in this piece is baseless. We have a unique culture that has served us well. Voting for candidates that support American values is in our national interest. On the other hand, voting for fringe candidates who don’t advocate for the general population at large will continue to divide.
1
So democracy is in trouble. Some democracy, relying on nine unelected justices to save it.
I get it. In a democracy politics are messy and complicated, and it is so much easier to put your faith in a small group of people, especially when it comes to having the laws that impose Federal authority on 50 states upheld. It's even better to have them stretch those laws in your favor. Let's hear it for Title IX!!
Who needs to vote when you've got the King and his Counselors on your side? Well, now the King is not on your side and his Counselors may not be either (more than one US King has regretted his choice of Counselor).
So, yes, back to the ballot box, and maybe the Democrats should think about catering more to those "deplorables" who don't live in our wonderful cities. They might even get their votes!
3
Nobody should be shocked by this. The shock occurred when Trump was elected & this change in the SCOTUS was a given. So get out & vote starting with local elections.
Your vote does matter! Younger people especially need to get that through their heads.
2
Just like we have to solve gerrymandering at the ballot box. Good luck with that.
Don’t omit the biggest elephant in the room: when Trump’s manifold crimes are revealed and one way or the other, efforts begin to remove him from office, the resultant constitutional crisis will be adjudicated by his very own handpicked judges—just like a banana republic. Also consider: since Trump, a career grifter, knows full well the depth and breadth of his own criminality, and realizes that Democratic control of Congress spells likely impeachment and potential jail-time, he and his henchmen will be desperate to subvert a fair electoral contest any way he can. Watch out for the mother of all October Surprises.
6
Let's face it, the Republicans won our country. The liberal agenda will from this point forward be shamelessly counter-attacked by the sophists on the Supreme Court: Solidarity (e.g. universal healthcare, unions, ...) will be portrayed as a violation of freedom of speech and choice, the battle for equal opportunities and rights of minorities, LGBTQ, ... will be undercut by twisted (re-)interpretations of freedom of religion and speech, etc.
This is a very bad day for America. There is no silver lining.
2
So, when Susan Sarandon said that Hillary Clinton was a bad choise and you would be better off with Trump, the people who listened to her and voted for Trump or other than Hillary are now very happy (Susan Sarandon included).
2
The Democratic Party lost because it failed to champion popular policies.
1
In a recent analysis (available on Politico) of the SC travel ban ruling Richard Primus reminds us of Justice Robert Jackson’s warning that “our courts do not have the institutional heft” to rescue us. “Salvation must come from Congress responding to an energized electorate.” This admonition issued in 1944 is worth heeding today.
1
I'm sure the irony is lost on the NYTimes...this is what conservatives have been saying for decades. Laws should be made by the legislators, not unelected judges. What a concept. Welcome to the Republic NYTimes.
3
"justice must be won at the ballot box".
That will not happen anytime soon. Many of the people that voted for trump don't even realize they are voting against their own interest. They love him. He is their savior.
And I for one, will not hold my breath waiting for things to improve. I will vote, knowing it will not do any good.
And I am really thankful I am at an age where I will NOT be around much longer to experience these frightening changes. Selfish, I guess. So I guess I am not unlike those selfish Republicans.
Contrary to the narcissist and extreme liberal view of the Editorial Board,the sky is not falling, and Roe v Wade has not been repealed. The Court is in good stead. Nomination process will be completed before the November elections. Recent court decision have not undermined individual rights rather, they have secured them from the extreme left's version of what is fair and just.
1
The next fight is Roe v. Wade and then on to birth control. Misogyny and control of women is the ultimate goal, and of course keeping the poor impoverished and voiceless is a given. The link between your vote and who controls your body needs to be made crystal clear to every citizen. Vote as is your life depended on it. Because it does.
2
We must remember that the Supreme Court interprets the law as it stands. Often--and these days pretty much always--they don't interpret it in a way that the majority of Americans agree with, given the conservative bias.
But as this editorial points out, if the laws change through legislative action, the Supreme Court must follow the law.
Much of American civil liberty has been won through court decisions. Misogyny is a good example. Congress never passed anti-misogyny laws. It was the courts that put an end to this reprehensible practice.
If we can't depend on the Supreme Court to protect our rights as citizens of America, then it is imperative that we elect legislators who will pass unambiguous laws that do just that. The Supreme Court, no matter how conservative, will have a hard time nullifying actual laws.
For American citizens there has never been as crucial a time to step up and vote and take back our government from the crypto-fascist Trumpians that threaten to destroy it.
This means fighting hard for every legislative seat from dog catcher to Senator. Especially sitting Republican Senators must be severely challenged, and all patriotic Americans whatever their formal party affiliation, must rid us of this GOP cancer.
2
This editorial gives us a laundry list of existing law that seems now threatened yet overlooks any cases related to freedom of the press. It's as if the self assured NY Times believes it will be fully exempt from the hatchet job coming its way. Voters need to be told now that their free press - as they know it today - is going to be toast if Trump is reelected. It will only take one significant case before the new court to substantially alter press freedoms. Print it while you still can!
3
So, let's see, legislative branch broken. Executive branch held by a nincompoop. So now the third branch goes down too. The Times' slight hopefulness that some Republicans in the Congress might step up to do the right thing is laughable. Republicans will complete the conversion of the country into a one-party state. The only consolation I see is the fact that reality always wins, eventually — which means very bad times ahead for Americans. History will look back and puzzle over what mass insanity must have caused the most influential and powerful country in the world to just spontaneously self destruct.
4
One of the most dark somber nightmarish editorials I’ve ever read in the New York Times.
And what is so profoundly wrenching is that this current situation, Including the travesty regarding judge Merrick Garland, did not need to happen.
The Democratic Party had strong majority control of both the Senate and the House at the beginning of Mr. Obama’s eight years. Within two years there was a profound realignment in the House—the greatest in over 70 years—and by 2014 control the Senate was also lost.
[During this time, who was head of the Democratic Party? It certainly did not appear to be President Barack Obama, who never acted like the head of the party or wanted to be the head of the party. The Clinton machine ran the Democratic Party.]
3
We should do everything possible for the mid-term election, but barring a miracle it’s all over. The new Supreme Court will enable Trump to rule as a dictator without concern for Congress or anything else. The Court’s latest decisions have already endorsed the view that the President has the power to do anything he wants in the name of national security.
We are now officially a rogue fascist state. The damage to the world will be considerable, but we will be the biggest losers. There are lots of contributors who made this possible. But Anthony Kennedy was the last barrier, and there will be a special page in history for his craven refusal to stand up for the now-lost experiment that was the United States.
1
Voters MUST send the McConnell majority packing in November. The fight to win is in the Senate.
4
I never thought we'd have a president that would be leading us towards a second civil war. I'm afraid that's exactly where this president is heading us.
6
Mr. Trump has schooled us all. In less than two years he’s overturned policies and norms that upheld democratic institutions in the United States for years. He has turned back the clock on women’s rights and opportunities. He has a Dred Scott court, a school to prison pipeline for the poor, and great guns for the wealthy. We’re a money corrupted, racist, monopolistic, dangerous country under his leadership. Yes, vote Democratic, but the damage internally and to our reputation will be hard to recover. Now we know a rich, determined dictator can take us down in short order, and the Statue of Liberty is French, not American. Now we know that justice isn’t blind. She’s for sale. Will most Americans vote? Before the Trumpists hollow out the nation? The reality show president shames us all. Will Americans care enough to even vote in 2018?
2
Speaking as a former long time Republican, my advice to all voters is to vote Democrat. The Republican party I used to support no longer exists, and the new one scares the he!! out of me.
2
The Democrats killed the filibuster for nominations to the lower federal courts during the Obama administration. The Republicans then did the same for nominations to the Supreme Court last year.
3
It is my understanding the midterms will be too little too late. What can we do until then except be uncivilized?
1
Somehow the forces of evil who hold powerful sway over Trump, a man who disdains courts, judges and judicial decisions that go against him, will produce a man or woman who looks good on TV, is well-educated and has what Mitch McConnell declares to be a commendable record on some lower Federal Court. Newt Gingrich and right-wing pundits will gush over this nominee and weak Senators will predictably vote for confirmation.
A nightmare cloaked in a black robe will begin leading America further into a sinkhole where modern concepts of fair play, even-handed justice and respect for a tradition of protecting fundamental rights is methodically eroded. Those Republicans who long for a return to the days where voting rights were subject to the whim of racist state legislatures, when juveniles and the mentally handicapped were given the death penalty, when women had to go underground for abortions and when toxic privately-owned dumps for hazardous materials were allowed may be getting ready to break out the Dom Perignon.
Listen closely the comments of our president about this appointment opportunity: He is hyperventilating.
1
Republicans have successfully set minority rule of white conservatives in place for at least a generation. Our constitution has established a means of peacefully, gradually undoing this situation through elections, but that, too, is under attack. If Republicans are successful at disenfranchising non-white voters through voter suppression, skewed criminal laws, immigration policies, etc., there may no longer be a peaceful remedy. I can easily see South Africa-style violence against apartheid here in the U.S. in 20 years if Republicans continue along this path.
1
I have had numerous statements in these columns since the advent of Trump, utterly excoriating his chaotic and even criminal behavior. But fellow citizens, the effort to make the U.S. Supreme Court the bastion of abortion and sexual radicalism is not anything like a positive way to lead the American people out of various kinds of darkness that gather around the Trump White House and the Republican Party. I can't blister Trump and his party and be dishonest about my feelings and the feelings of millions of other Americans on these cultural and sexual issues. The abortion issue in particular is an ultimate issue to many religious Americans. It is head in the sand to deny that, it seems to me.
1
Justice cannot be won at the ballot box with a Supreme Court playing politics and making justice unconstitutional.
Nothing will change until the Dems retake power and pack the courts. As Mitch McConnell noted, that would be entirely legal and politically acceptable.
Nothing will happen as long as the Republicans play hardball and the Dems, living in the past, play softball. Dems have to be as shameless and aggressive as the Republicans. Until then, Dems will be a permanent minority in government, even while being a majority of the population.
1
Don't even consider Jeff Flake as a possible sane vote in this mess. Just look up the Judiciary committee line of questioning he gave Gorsuch (to refresh your memory, Flake asked about fishing). Flake is all sizzle and no steak. He is my purported senator, and I'm not even bothering to contact him about his vote for the future SC nominee. I am appealing to John McCain to cast an abstention or NO vote, even before the extremist nominee is named. Never too early to appeal to his reason while he is still capable. Flake is a lost cause.
2
What a disaster - Liberals will soon have to convince the majority of their fellow life-travelers that certain policies are reasonable and fair - as opposed to convincing five wise men of the SCOTUS to legislate it by fiat.
Foolishly - I had always thought that was the basic underpinning of a liberal democracy.
Kennedy is sad enough but consider that two more justices could retire in Trump’s first or second term meaning 7 of the 9 could be conservative
Democrats, and particularly minorities, need to get out and vote.
With the attempts to change the elections laws there is only a limited amount of time, maybe the next two elections, before America moves to the Apartheid state conservatives like Trump and Buchanan desire.
5
Kennedy retired in time to affect the November Election so all of the accolades given him by the left are unwarranted. More often than not he voted the party line. If the Dem's don't have an all out brawl in fighting Trump's next pick they will be sent packing.I find it alarming that Red state Dems would rather keep their jobs than their principles.It is time the Left go for broke and show they are willing to go to the mat for what they believe.If they can't craft a message by November to the Perils of Trump's pick they should seriouly think about a new career..Trump told everyone in the campaign the he wants to overturn Roe v Wade. Why even have a court if they always vote as a block? If the Dem's don't take this to the wall it is time to clean house.
4
Fine. But, if the DNC, the Clintons, and the Democratic Party leadership did not conspire to thrust Hillary Clinton, on America, Trump most likely would not be president, and at least the Senate in Democrats hands. Cats blame in all directions, like blame men, blame Millennials, blame Koch, blame PCAs, etc. But, truth be told, early polls showed that Clinton could lose to Trump, even before the conventions.
So, here we are, a president who has autocratic ambitions, ruling by decree, undoing everything President Obama did in eight years, placing people seeking asylum in interment camps, and trying to crash the US economy. And, he will be appointing even a more "conservative" Supreme Court justice which will send this country further away from the republic it once was.
So, Democrat,and Hillary Clinton, supporters, when you get off your high horse, and stop the blame game, you may have a chance to be a force against an every growing autocracy. Hint, tell Bill and Hillary; get lost. And, second, make it so that Senate Democrats make the new Supreme Court justice nomination, and anything else, so slow and tedious, that nothing gets done until 2019. Finally, run on kitchen table issues for the fall elections.
If Democrats cannot do those three things, then prepare yourself for complete autocracy. Provided that Trump does not do and issue an executive order banning all parties, but his own. That would make an interesting Supreme Court case; can a president ban political parties?
4
Another obvious issue to address with the Supreme Court would be mandatory retirement. South Carolina has a mandatory retirement age of 72 for the judiciary. We should pass a constitutional amendment to address this issue. Do we really want people in their 80s and 90s sitting on the bench?
3
This means stop spending millions for television and campaign gurus and use the money for a vast campaign on registration, registration and registration followed by a mammoth drive to get people to vote.
Remember, Clinton lost Michigan by some ten thousand votes while in democratic Wayne County sixty-thousand people did not vote.
1
Yes, by all means vote in gerrymandered states. But even if progressives vote in massive numbers, still, assume the Senate acts like the spineless, crawling, useless institution it has become, the next justice will be as bad as Gorsuch.
So here's my prediction: Roe, Lawrence, Obergefells, Casey and I'm sure a host of other progressive rulings will all go down and we will be back in the 1950s.
But don't worry: trump and his family and friends will continue to get richer.
So if voting is useless because it has been made useless, what then? Marches in the street? What?
4
I keep waiting for the Democratic Party to stand for something.
On healthcare? Nothing. The ACA was a right-of-center plan. They never supported single-payer.
On the wars? We are still there. The Democrats opposed the wars when Bush was in office but supported them when Obama was President.
Now the Democrats are fighting on behalf of illegal immigrants. That is all they fight for. They also talk, endlessly, on how much they dislike Trump. Fine- I don't like Trump either. But not liking Trump, and loving illegal economic immigrants, is not a winning platform.
Right or wrong a large number of citizens wanted a change and voted for Trump. Not a majority- but enough. The Democratic Party must try to convince those people that they have a platform worth voting for.
I fear they will not do so. I fear that many who dislike Trump will vote Republican because they want something to be done. They are not all racist bigots either. The liberals in this country think that the US belongs to the world- they think poems and the Statue of Liberty are more important than voters. They believe that illegal economic migrants are more important than voters.
They are mistaken. Until they legalize and grant citizenship to all those illegal immigrants they need voters, actual citizens, to support their policies. It doesn't matter what the electorate is twenty years from now- it matters what the electorate is today.
8
Thanks Bernie supporters! And now we shall reap what you have sown. Goodbye to America as we know it! I hope you remember this next time you want to sit one out in protest.
5
Can someone tell me why Dems never bothered to take McConnell's refusal to consider Obama's pick to court, while we still had a real court? Why nothing at all has been done to, say, censure McConnell?
OK, I get that there are more Repubs in the Senate. But the precedent being set here was so bad, and will have such ramifications in the future, it just seems ridiculously supine to have done nothing at all.
2
The plea to vote is about a decade late as Democrats have lost almost 1000 state house seats since 2009, the House in 2011, the Senate in 2015, the White House in 2016, 27 state chambers by 2016, and the Supreme Court in 2017. Just looking at the Presidential election in the six states that Trump flipped votes by Democrats were down by almost a million. Instead of developing platforms that would appeal to more people Democrats blame ignorant racists for their losses, which includes people who voted for them twice in previous elections, as well as the Constitution. To make matters worse it appears that progressives will make inroads, possible leading to an election result not since McGovern.
4
I wish he had stayed until 2020. The country is in peril and needs all the moderating forces it can locate. I fear that all of the good Kennedy has done will soon be permanently wiped out by his replacement.
2
Everyone should take a breath!
This situation is fixable. The size of the Supreme Court is determined by law. Changing the size of the court for political reasons has occurred several times in our history. FDR tried it last in 1937.
It will require the Democrats to grow a spine and not roll over like they usually do. In a couple of years the Democrats could slap that grin off Mitch McConnel’s face and put a knife in the heart of the conservative movement.
3
You do understand the even if democrats "grow a spine" that they are not in power in Congress, correct? You do understand the the chances democrats take control of the senate are slim/unlikely, correct?
Do you also understand that we have a psychopathic sociopath parading as "president" from having orchestrated to, let's say, "undermine" the election and has spoken these very words: “He’s (Xi) now president for life, President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
It time folks like you reckon with exactly where things are at.
2
Leaving the US and renouncing citizenship is looking more and more like a better option. New Zealand is looking better by the day.
1
We moderates need to raise our voices, show up at election time and speak out against every unjust and perverted statement coming out of the Trump administration. This is no time to be complacent. There is nothing new here from Trump, McConnell,
and his cabal of corporate cronies. I am not ready to give up our hard-fought civil rights. I agree with other commenters hoping the Mueller speeds up to a conclusion but is there an
assurance that prosecution will follow?
1
I don’t know how to make the Dems and independents that I encounter understand that their vote counts. This ongoing “all candidates are bad” business has got to change. Wake up folks—there are no perfect candidates. But there are people who believe in upholding our rights, EVERYONE’s rights. Not just the rights of white Christian men. It all hinges on November. I’m terrified.
4
How about upholding the rights of Christian men? All I read about is upholding the rights of everyone excecpt white Christian men.
The current Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, ruled gerrymandering on the basis of race okay and, thanks to its decision in Citizens United, encouraged our elected representatives to sell their votes to the highest bidder (not that they needed much persuading). The retirement of Justice Kennedy can only make things worse. Freed from having to get the consent of 60 Senators for Supreme Court nominees, Trump and his Republican lackeys now have a pathway to achieving their dream: a self-perpetuating electoral system in which the votes of the rich are worth more than those of the poor, the votes of white males are worth more than those of females and people of color and the establishment of a government controlled by a profoundly partisan and anti-Constitution minority. "Justice must be won at the ballot box" says the New York Times. If that is to happen, however, it must happen in November because if not then, those sacred repositories of our democracy are surely destined to disappear.
2
Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have a tendency for lip service but roll with their party in the end.
2
Must vote in the midterms. If Dems don’t take the majority of the House or Senate, there won’t be another election.
2
The Supreme Court was designed to be apolitical with lifetime appointments. The great justices were just that. Warren, O'Connor, maybe Stevens and Roberts. Political beliefs still creep into most justices" thinking.
Most Americans view abortion as a woman's right. The issue has been a vote machine for the Right, though Bushes, Trump, probably Reagan never really cared much. This reliable 10% of the voters now have their way with 50+% of the population. Amplified power, like Prohibition.
More cynical is Citizen United, where money is given equal weight to people.
The Supreme Court justices should be insulated from political squabbles and uphold principles that are set forth in the constitution and law. The devil is in the details and nuance. Free speech can mean that services by religious groups can refuse to tell you your best option. Banks and major businesses are equally citizens with you. Voter suppression and gerrymandering is not a threat to democracy.
So, what does the "Right" want? power and control of the masses! Power rightly goes to the Koch's, the Trump's and genetically superior Ubermen, who can be trusted to vote. The little people, can't be trusted so they are fed political nostrums Trump made loud to lure them away from citizenship.
In the middle ages, a hard mean obedient life meant a good afterlife. Today we are conditioned to consume trinkets for votes.Paranoid? You judge! is there is logical conflict in some of the opinions? Or do we buy the trinkets.
1
From an historical perspective, it has always struck me that rich folk, the essential American oligarchs, are short-sighted in their focus on ever more money and power. But of course they, like most of us care mainly about themselves, and not the changes they are fomenting socially and politically. They care little about social justice issues, which is why I am optimistic that the more they focus on self aggrandizement, the more rope there is with which they will intimately hang themselves.
I am afraid that a moribund government and electoral process will ultimately lead not to the kind of “grass roots” changes Trump and the McConnell/Ryan Republicans want: control of government by a coalition of ignorant “deplorables” and corporate “ought-to-know-betters,” but changes none of us will be able to control.
The more rope, the better to hang themselves with!
Let's try to examine the fallout from Justice Kennedy's resignation:
There is no way Donald Trump is going to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court now as a goodwill gesture of reconciliation.
Everyone knew this day was coming. The rumor mill had been busy for months speculating about Justice Kennedy's imminent resignation.
The NY Times and its very loyal bloggers are going to hate anyone Donald Trump nominates to the Supreme Court as Kennedy's successor.
As much as I dislike Mitch McConnell I have to give credit where credit is due. Mitch McConnell was able to get every Republican Senator, including the moderates, to deny Merrick Garland the courtesy of a nomination hearing. This strategy paid off. Mitch McConnell outmaneuvered Barack Obama who promptly disappeared after he nominated Merrick Garland.
2
Ironically, this is the true reason for the second amendment's existence...
Justice Kennedy, announcing your retirement before midterm elections confirms you’re low character, deep seeded conservative leanings and love of Trump. While we disagreed with many of your votes, in the end we thought you were better than that. How wrong we were.
11
This Court will do far more harm before its done, and judicial review is often a last stop, a powerful hammer for the partisan right and its corporate sponsors. What we can and must do is the cliched-but-true: Get out our voters. Win the midterms. Take back the White House in 2020. Limit the damage.
5
a few quick observations:
is it possible that Justice Kennedy retired at this precise time deliberately? to actually 'insure' a replacement even further to the right of center than himself?
if true, which final-praise/condemnation of him will endure?
as for the non-voters - - current participants in the electoral process (( roughly 4/7ths of eligible voters )) "may" in fact not be 'representative' of the entire citizenry ...
'what-if' 2 of the non-voting 3/7ths are "on-the-other side"??
what kind-of a country do we actually have??
as individuals, we need to determine our level(s) of actions ...
as groups, we need to be prepared to deal with the consequences of the possibility of our losing the vote to our fellow citizens.
in all events: we do indeed live in very interesting times.
better to vote and deal with the results,
than to sit-out and constantly complain.
1
Nina Totenberg on NPR has the best analysis of the Kennedy resignation. The court might now over turn Roe v. Wade, Affirmative Action in higher education, gay rights, alter the view on gun rights. She ends with a quote from REM: "It's the end of the World as we know it." The rest of the quote is: "And I'm all right." Well, I'm not. We need to get everyone who believes in these cases to get out the vote. I know how I'm spending my fall. Do what you can. Thanks.
8
I am more afraid of the civil war coming then of this court change. 80,000 people in a few states (and Russian Operatives) should not have this much power over the rest of us. This will only fuel the fire.
5
If it's any comfort by the time Trump and company get done poisoning the air and water, trashing the economy and getting rid of affordable health care there will be a lot fewer of their disciples around.
1
Ironically, the editorial reveals the core problem with left leaning voters in this country; it's not so much your vote itself counts as it is that your vote can influence the placement of judges who will do your bidding.
Left-leaning celebrated decisions like Roe v. Wade and Obergefell were judicial usurpations of the democratic process, taking issues that should have properly been left up to voters and the states, and turning them into fake constitutional issues that could then be manipulated by "finding" rights in the Constitution which had never existed before.
5
Civil rights are not supposed to be up for a vote. I'm not sure how you missed this.
2
Abortion and gay marriage, among other things, were never conceived of as civil rights, until certain judges invented them.
Nothing has changed. Vote the Republicans out in the midterms, do it again in 2020 and your problems are reduced drastically. I'm from the UK and even I see that :-)
5
I understand what you are saying. But the progressive population is centered in only a few states and when you are talking about the senate each state gets two. So the conservative states outnumber the progressive states which allows them to control the senate.
1
Democrats needn't worry. We are on the way to once again becoming what the framers envisioned; A NATION OF LAWS, not a nation of left wing activists.
1
The NYT editorial board points to Justice Kennedy's nomination as a vestige of the time before "ultra-conservative activists hijacked the nomination process." I recall his nomination was the result of the Democrats successful but at the time unusual campaign in the Senate to prevent the nomination of the conservative Robert Bork. Kennedy's reasoning was often difficult to follow and his prose was sometimes turgid. I thought he was a result oriented jurist but it is the contrary that would be strange.
It all boils down to this for me. Do Americans who oppose what Trump and the GOP stand for have the courage to not only vote in their own best interests but to work for candidates who do and to speak up against the Conservative arrogance now abroad in America? We have to some extent, but not enough to make any difference. And just as importantly do Democrats and Independents in Congress have the spine and the courage to fight against McConnell and his more than willing mob of GOP Senators. The next four months will tell us if becoming an immigrant is a better choice.
4
The over the top rhetoric on the left might be great for some, but considering a large part of their base is educationally challenged inner city poor...will it really do any good. Perhaps instead of promoting a liberal agenda from the bench the last 50 years they should have focused on better schools. How long did democrats think they could legislate from the bench? Why not try to influence society within the framework of the Constitution. Pass laws. And if you can't get a majority to agree with you...then perhaps you should reflect on what it is you are trying to accomplish...and if it's really good for the whole nation.
2
This is why rigging the Democratic nomination process was such a bad idea.
If your candidate once lost to a newcomer from IL while starting on 3rd base and then needed party corruption to beat a socialist from VT & had significantly higher negatives than ANY Democratic winner, maybe, just maybe, this is what you get.
I blame the DNC and the party elites for this.
The consequences will be with us for the next 30 or 40 years.
6
We the People are the most powerful check on nonsense, both in Congress and in the executive.
The problems come when we want our side to win by any means necessary and are fine with electing a possibly criminal president who may very well be a Russian asset, and we are happy when the US Senate steals a Supreme Court seat if it means we get what we want.
We get the government we deserve. I say: We the People deserve better, thus we ought to vote better.
2
Well, I guess we all knew this was coming. Donald Trump in the White House, Republicans in charge of all three branches of government and a Supreme Court full of aging liberals and moderates. The sclerotic Democratic leadership clings to power--and campaign contributions--despite losing everything except a few governors mansions and state houses in solidly blue states. My guess is that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. In the meantime I'll cling to hope and vote in my very red state, donate to candidates I like and to do the only thing that a citizen can do VOTE THE BUMS OUT!
2
Republicans, especially if they are conservative vote at a higher rate than Democrats.
When I canvass only Blue homes in my state I can't begin to tell you how often a Blue household is not aware of the Blue candidate.
1
Your last paragraph about what could have been, refers to the past and nothing will change that. On the other hand, getting more Americans to vote can change everything.
More important ultimately will be the decision to establish term limits for the Justices. What is democratic about locking our country into a decades-long conservative or liberal Supreme Court. We are looking at the answer to that question right now.
Seeing R V W rejected or gerrymandering continued at the cost of denying voters' rights is what lies ahead and there is absolutely nothing democratic about either.
How critical is the upcoming Congressional election?
3
"Seeing R V W rejected ... at the cost of denying voters' rights"
It is Roe vs Wade itself that denies voters' rights, by preventing them from voting on a crucial issue. Rejecting Roe vs Wade will empower them.
Funny how the question of term limits suddenly rears its head after conservatives start taking over. Would you have been on here asking that same question if Obama had installed 2 judges?
Going out on a limb here, but Im guessing no.
The SCOTUS life assignments have been on my list of problems from long before Obama. We have change potential in the House, 2 years, the Senate, 6 years, the presidency, 4 years, and SCOTUS left to the whim of the individual Justices.
With a crank like Trump as president, life time appointments are more than questionable especially in view of our gutless Congress. In other words, if Congress cannot control it, time should.
I am a devout liberal.
It was never the proper province of the judiciary to read your policy preferences into the Constitution. I've been a supporter of gay marriage since long before it was "trendy," and I don't think there's any intellectually honest argument that the Equal Protection Clause, ratified in 1868 to guarantee that freed slaves had the full rights of citizenship, is applicable to a modern form of marriage that the drafters would have laughed at you if you claimed it was protected.
2
Should there still be history left to remember, nothing will wipe out the stain that is Mitch McConnell though he gloats in victory now. In the few moments remaining to democracy, if voting actually does result in a blue wave, please, on a local level, as a gift to the world that might have been, get your state legislature to sign onto the National Popular Vote Bill where states pledge to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote so no other Frankenstein monster can ever again be elected in defiant contradiction of the popular will--if, in fact, future elections in a country that is essentially held hostage by the Republicans, have anything close to the meaning we once imagined they had. The Electoral College was an ultimate Faustian bargain and the devil is certainly collecting now on his supersized portion of the American soul. No one, except perhaps McConnell and the Republicans, would have dreamed it would be so easy to toss away the American experiment in just a couple of years, between the stolen Supreme Court seat and the president elected through voter suppression and the tyranny of the minority over the majority.
3
Don't make 1 reminder to vote and think you're done.
Ensure you bang the get out and vote drum till the voting is done.
Of course it's not just the NYT that has to do it. But still, you have to make sure you do it. Continuously. While constantly trying to figure out how to do it effectively (i.e., producing the desired voters to poll result).
2
“And if Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court,” said Sen. Richard Burr just before the election. "Straight Talk" Senator McCain said, “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.”
The GOP is all about stacking the deck in their favor. They were all too willing to ignore the ballot box had Mrs. Clinton won.
That is even more reason to vote these rascals out and change the Congress from red to blue. Otherwise, we will all be singing the blues for a long, long time.
1
The problem is that the electorate is simply uninformed on the impact on the nation by the policies of those they elect. Some may want Roe v Wade overturned, never thinking about what that means. Other will vote strictly on Second Amendment rights, especially in rural America, never understanding the impact of their position in urban areas. How many people who support the destruction of Unions understand collective bargaining? Even if you are an avid voter it seems that the real impact of who you vote for and what they stand for somehow escapes most people. Most voter's will ignore the absence of integrity or moral compass just because a really bad politician agrees with the one or two positions they support. Mitch McConnell would not bring a confirmation vote on a Supreme Court nominee to a sitting president with 10 months left in his term, but is now willing to have a hearing almost immediately on Justice Kennedy's replacement. In what way does Mr. McConnell still belong in the Senate? His position is the height of hypocrisy, yet I hear no talk of his removal. The voters in the nation are not educated on the issues or when to speak up when the democratic process is corrupted. We're now in a place where anything goes as the Trump presidency demonstrates. Democrats don't vote when they're liberties are at risk and Republicans will look past just about anything now to support a conservative agenda. This is NOT how democracy is supposed to work. Banana Republic.
2
"The problem is that the electorate is simply uninformed on the impact on the nation by the policies of those they elect."
I agree. A few weeks ago Democrats were talking about "repealing Citizens United" if they won in November. Supreme Court decisions cannot be repealed. The country is stuck with them until the judges admit their mistakes (not likely), or an amendment undermines the Constitutional principles underlying the decision (not very likely in a polarized country). After the Court upheld slavery in the Dred Scott decision, it took a Civil War to get rid of the "peculiar institution".
1
We're sick to death of the worst president in American history. And the only avenue not barred to the American people to repeal and replace him is through mass Democratic voting in the Mid-Terms and 2020. Justice can only be won at the ballot box in November. Horrifying us further will be Trump's replacement of swing-voter, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired yesterday. If R.B.G. (85 years of age) and Stephen Breyer (79) retire from the Supreme Bench, Trump will pack his SCOTUS with justices who will affect all of our American lives, and our children in their 20s today until their 60s. We can only hope and pray that Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, will not be able to rush Trump's newest Supreme Court pick through the confirmation hearings before the Mid-Terms. Hopefully, McConnell will get a dose of his own "Merrick Garland" medicine and his just desserrts in the coming months.
1
NYer here. Trump has been in the public eye here for decades.. Hes been nothing but a success and a stalwart here. Never considered a racist, until he won an election against Democrats. There are many of us, right here in liberal NYC, that believe he will be the greatest President ever.
Doing a great job so far.
What dont you like about him? The peace or the prosperity? Or is it the enforcement of current immigration law?
2
Vote progressives and democrats into office. Pass laws that reflect the will of the People and not a minority. This is our only recourse at this point (operating within the current political confines, anyway).
4
What about those minorities who won't vote because the Democrats take them for granted or it's too hard to vote? What would MLK have said to them? Actually they're taking for granted that they'll always have the option to vote. Voting is taking the power. Use it or lose it.
2
Vote Progressive.
We were not just 'with her', we were 'for and with the People'.
Ocasio-Cortez "It’s not just one district"
NYTimes, one of the most powerful media in history is a corporation that can change things, indorse the People, work for the People.
Vote Progressive.
Progress for People.
3
We now have all three branches of government controlled by ultra-right wing Republicans. The irony is that we have both a minority president and a minority in control of the House. The outdated Electoral College has given us the second minority president in this young century. And, so far the record is as bad as the first. Moreover, gerrymandering and voter suppression has put a minority in control of the House. Until, and unless, these structural flaws are corrected, we will continue to be governed be a radical, authoritarian, minority party--the Party of Trump. The result will be an even more radical Supreme Court as we've already seen in the recent decisions and others such as Citizens United. Minority rule may be how democracy dies, one Supreme Court decision at a time.
2
I can not agree more, the first line of defense for any ideal is to vote for a candidate who supports it. To say your vote doesn't count is really crazy and for proof just look at the upset with Joseph Crowley. If his supporters felt secure in his power and stayed home Tuesday look what happened, he's out! We have allowed to supreme court to get to powerful, if we vote in a congress willing to do its job and pass laws we don't need the court to make policy as they really do now.
3
The editorial is void of one key development that affects the entire nomination process: the 2013 passage of a change to Senate rules to ban the use of the filibuster to prevent presidential nominees from being confirmed. This was the work of a Senate controlled by the Democratic Party, under Senator Harry Reid.
2
If indeed the Supreme Court is meant to act as "countermajoritarian", then the Times has every right to be deeply concerned. Because a conservative Supreme Court would indeed reflect the actual US majority - the voiceless majority that is ignored by the MSM, denigrated by Hollywood, reviled in the academy. It is not so much a silent majority as it is a deliberately silenced majority that will finally have at least one serious voice on the national scene, i.e. the Supreme Court. Interestingly the TImes was never concerned about a countermajoritarian role for the USSC when the justices were predominantly liberal and the Times and its echo chamber could convince themselves that a majority of Americans were liberal as well. Now the chickens are finally coming home to roost and, mirabile dictu, not all Americans live in NYC and San Francisco or obey the dictates of CNN, MSNBC, Robert De Niro or your friendly local gender studies professor.
Let me remind you that a majority of Americans who voted in November '16 voted for the more liberal Hillary Clinton.
2
Vote for a pluralistic and open and fairer and more equal society. The Republicans and their Federalist Society has perfected the ideological vetting of judicial candidates to destroy the purpose of judicial review and serve their principal objectives - corporate interests, oligarchic power, White Evangelicals and their religious state. The structure of our Republic with 2 Senators for every state regardless of size and with House districts gerrymandered to favor their rural base makes it easy to have a zealot minority force their views on the majority.
They are assisted by the growing tribalism encouraged by an ideological media of Right Wing talk radio and Fox News.
Trump who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes rules
without any regard for the majority of citizens that voted against him. This is thanks to the obsolete electoral college that also favors the Republicans. Despite his populist rhetoric with its racist implications, he is willing to support their judicial nominees and their tax cuts for the rich. He rails against a deep state although most the political power has been held by the Republicans for 50 years. Given all these strains on the Constitutional democracy and the rule of law, I fear for the survival of the American idea. That is why it is critical to vote for a better and more progressive America and eventually to eliminate the electoral college and reform the structure of the House and Senate to make it more representative of the will of the people.
3
" to destroy the purpose of judicial review and serve their principal objectives - corporate interests, oligarchic power..."
In fact, it's judicial review that upholds these things. When judicial review was revived in the Gilded Age (it was rarely used before the Civil War) its main purpose was to strike down laws that sought to rein in the robber barons.
For many voters, the last election wasn’t about Trump, but the Supreme Court, and now they will have two new conservative judges. Who to blame? Look no further than Hillary and her sycophants. The Democrats had other choices (Joe Biden?), but the Clinton’s control of the party and those that appeased her lead to this devastating outcome.
4
I blame the past Supreme Court justices who inflated the Supreme Court's power and therefore made them a power center that the political parties were anxious to capture. (There's nothing in the Constitution about giving the Court power to strike down laws) That a single judge's retirement would cause sweeping changes in American law shows how undemocratic our government has gotten.
2
The Democratic Party has a simple choice to make: are citizens, or illegal economic migrants, their primary concern?
Their plan is obvious: change the electorate by supporting the mass infusion of illegal immigrants. That will ensure they have a majority twenty years from now- it does not help them today.
The Democratic Party must start supporting policies that are popular with the electorate as it is today. That includes policies that 'evil', 'privileged' white voters support.
Bear in mind: popular, race neutral, policies win elections. The Democrats need only support policies that help EVERYONE and they can win.
I fear that the Democratic addiction to illegal economic migrants will doom them in the November elections. The working classes of this country, of all races and national origins, are hurting. It is time for the Democratic Party to start fighting for working people- not working people from X or working people with skin color Y.
7
Democrats--we must get our acts together!
Our leaders must be stronger and more organized.
Our voters must accept that our choices aren't between good or perfect; they're between good enough or total disaster.
3
The NYT is correct. With Kennedy gone, the people have only one way to get justice. It is stated clearly in question #49 of the requirements and knowledge needed for being a US citizen: vote in Federal elections. Not some, but ALL Federal elections. As Yogi Berra probably said: You could look it up.
Come on, NYT. Be an advocate for universal voting! Trump is not going to do it, so you are our best hope. Just do it.
I find it interesting that all those commenting who lean to the left see this development as the demise of the country, because THEIR agenda is in danger. This is precisely the attitude that got Trump elected. The Times says "[the SC] who believed the Supreme Court could still stand for reproductive freedom, equal rights for all Americans, a check on presidential power.....". I thought the SC stood for upholding the Constitution and recent rulings all were in support of that. The anger and rage from the left at the perceived crumbling of their agenda has become almost dangerous in its intensity. I don't see the left's agenda as holding up my liberties, as they claim, but as slowly taking them away in the name of their "progressive" values.
5
All well and good! However, if the economy stays good, we can expect President Trump to remain in office, through 2023! He will continue to set the tone! Conservative or Liberal, money in ones pocket leads, and the moral compass will be in the back burner! Therefore the three institutions, the Presidency, the Congress, and the Judiciary, that our Constitution set-up in a framework of Checks and Balances, to among other things thwart tyranny will be in the guidance of people, who will continue to lead us into the abyss! Darker days are ahead because I don't see more Americans getting out there to vote, if they are satisfied with their cash situation.
2
We'll need close to a supermajority in November due to voter suppression and Gerrymandering.
As a New York Mets fan I feel my country is following my baseball team--hopeless, but I still cheer and muster hope only to watch it fizzle 9/10 times.
2
We know about the ballot box. We also know about bad candidates and tired of voting for old political incumbents - on both sides.
1
So you're fine with what's happening right now?
How many people didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because they "just didn't like her?" Does that seem like a good reason now? Wish I had more confidence in this kind of voter to come out in November. My guess is they'll say, "It won't make a difference anyway."
5
Amen! As I think about what is happening to our country right before our very eyes because of Trump/Republicans, it is in part due to the purist progressives who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary. So many Republicans held their nose and voted for Trump because of things like the Supreme Court, taxes and other matters that were important to them. That more Democrats/liberals/or however they choose to define themselves couldn't do the same and vote for Hillary for the sake of our environment, voting rights, healthcare, fair justice, women's rights, immigrant rights, Supreme Court, and on and on and on, boggles my mind. We must stop thinking that the issues which divide mainstream/centrists Democrats and progressives are so deep and wide that they're worth giving up as much as we gave up in 2016. In the mid-terms, I hope that everyone who is Democrat/progressive puts the country above our internal differences and turns out to vote for whatever Democrat is on the ticket. (Because every indication is that Republicans are energized.) Over-turning the House and Senate is now clearly our only defense against this president. This must be our unifying call to action.
3
Accepting people like Hilary got us into this mess...choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil...at the end of the day free people stand up for themselves and that is what we must do now.
2
Amen, sistah! We Democrats couldn't unite to support Hilary because of her "baggage" which in hindsight doesn't seem worth the lack of support from Democrats she received. The Republicans stepped over the baggage of their deeply flawed candidate and voted in lockstep for this horror show we are all witnessing. I venture to say that anyone who has reached the point of being a candidate for president has baggage because it's the nature of politics. We will pay for this presidency for years to come. At my age, I will likely feel the reverberations the rest of my life.
I woke up early in the morning on November 9, 2016 with a heavy heart, knowing things were going to get bad. Never could I have imagined how much so.
Every day since January 2017 I read the news, horrified at what’s happening in this country. Every day I tell myself things can’t possibly get any worse, yet they do. What’s happened this past week has shaken me to the core and my heart breaks for the country that I once loved and no longer recognize.
To all the people who didn’t care too much for Hillary and opted for Trump (I was one of them but voted for her), to all the Bernie supporters who didn’t vote because they were angry with Hillary, to all the people who don’t bother to vote because you think your vote doesn’t count, I say this to you: Your country desperately needs you now. Future generations are depending on you. Let them read in the history books that people had enough, came together, and saved a country on the brink of becoming an autocracy. I beg you. GET OUT AND VOTE!
11
For who, for what, for the quietly laughing in the background entirely corrupt Democratic Party, the silent partner in the totalitarian fascist government cementing its control of the sleeping American electorate.
Some truly wonderful opportunities are likely out there, opportunities to halt our demise, but I think we will slide further into the abyss before fear finally makes us stand and fight back.
4
I hope Mueller can speed forward with the investigation and conclusions. If we have a finding that Trump colluded with the Russians and/or is a money laundering/influence selling criminal, then perhaps we could hope that at least one or two Republican senators could hold up any further court nominees. I know this is completely unlikely, but its the only chance I see. Otherwise we have to wait until 2020 and then see if the Democrats can really take over the government and expand the number of justices on the Court.
4
Muellerr's investigation was discredited the moment the IG report came out. Nobody likes biased investigations - and it is clear that Mueller put together a team of nothing but trump-haters determined to find something, anything to get him with, even if it meant manufacturing a crime, or forcing a witness to perjure themselves to stay out of jail. All the "evidence" he is collecting is now just "fruit from the poisoned tree"
Mueller should have played it fair from day one and either put together a team of apolitical investigators with no discernible political viewpoint, or a team split 50/50 down the middle between the vocal Trump haters, and vocal Trump supporters.
That he didn't do that, makes any result from Mueller suspect and easily ignored.
1
It may already be worse than this editorial, and many others like it, warn might happen. When Republicans can gain the presidency in three out of the last seven presidential elections even though Republicans won the popular vote in just one election; when more Americans vote for Democrats in state elections but more Republicans gain seats in state legislatures; when those legislatures can gerrymander artificial majorities in perpetuity; when Republicans can prevent a Supreme Court vacancy from being filled; democracy is not just being threatened, it has already failed.
22
I recently read a story about the 1940s citizenship hearing for Kurt Goedel, a refugee from Nazi Germany and the world expert on logic. When the immigration judge asked whether the Constitution would keep a dictator from taking over the US, Goedel startled him by saying no. Albert Einstein (who was sponsoring Goedel) hastily urged Goedel to keep his mouth shut lest he ruin his bid for citizenship. The chronicler of the story said it would have been interesting to hear what Goedel would have said about Constitutional flaws. Would it resemble what's going on now?
It is essential Democrats bring all issues to the table to the public when addressing the Supreme Court nominee. Focusing predominantly on Roe vs Wade is going to perpetuate an issue that has been divisive for years, Republicans have been successful when it comes to pro choice candidates.
Citizens United enabled the most wealthy to buy elections both State and Federal and the decisions made did not be benefit the majority.
The recent Tax reform increased the national debt, benefitted the weathly, expires for the working class.
The Court's decisions are regressing. Religion has entered the arena, gay rights and marriage, travel ban, weakened unions, the power the president holds as in tariffs will eventually come at great cost to all segments of society from Farmers to buying a car or toaster.
Gasoline is rising dramatically due to decisions Trump has made. For instance I am paying $7.50 more to fill my tank within the months after dropping out of Iran Nuclear deal. Down South big trucks are King ... the price of a gallon off gas is related to Trump.
The minimum wage and rising cost of living. Many families are working 2,3, and 4 jobs to survive. What type of future will their children have?
ALL ISSUES will not only win the mid terms but make people realize how the Supreme Court possesses the power to turn America into one party rule leaving the majority struggling to survive.
8
What could be more obvious than the importance of voting?
The Supreme Court is highly political, and always has been, of course.
Who would want to trust 9 people to decide what the law should be?
3
Wholeheartedly agree. Many issues the Court has addressed should be left to individual states. If Roe is ever overturned then each state would revert back to laws on record in that state and local politicians would have to address the issue. Politicians would no longer be able to hide behind the gowns of SCOTUS justices.
Things are looking bleak, it must be admitted. But perhaps the silver lining in all this is that it will galvanize people to get out and vote. We all know the real problem in American politics is not Donald Trump and the GOP but poor voter turn-out as a result of apathy!
6
I am 65 and only the first 6 months of my life included a Chief Justice not appointed by a Republican. With Democratic majorities in the Senate, checks were placed on the on the excesses of the elected Republican presidents' extreme tendencies. Republicans play hardball in the Supreme court appointment game. If they continue to not accommodate the middle to progressive ground occupied by the majority of Americans. Expect the following the next time there is a Democratic presidency and Democratic majority in the Senate and House, the Supreme Court will either expand to 11 justices, or retirement terms will be placed on justices serving on the Supreme Court, moving long serving justices to the appellate court level. Nine–eighteen year terms corresponding to each Congressional cycle would be a good place to start the discussion.
14
The choice to replace Justice Kennedy is not being made solely by Trump. It was also made by the millions who, petulantly, chose not to vote because Sanders did not receive the Democratic party's nomination, in addition to those who cast their vote for Jill Stein. I hope it was worth it, the next couple of decades aren't going to be pretty...
27
"It was also made by the millions who, petulantly, chose not to vote because Sanders did not receive the Democratic party's nomination,"
Yeah, sure the party decided to run an insider candidate that was wildly unpopular, regardless of how much they had to cheat to do it, and it's the fault of everyone else. Get over it. You got your way, you got your candidate, you lost, and we all suffer for it.
Next time, if there is one, don't cheat so obviously that half your base turns away in disgust.
2
Besides the McConnel precedent,with trump under investigation, this Supreme Court nominee must not be considered until after the election and especially the Mueller investigation is completed.
17
Fat chance for that. McDonnel has the power and the opportunity, and it is a sure thing that he will use it. Expect a nomination and confirmation before the mid term elections. Holding off to "let the people choose" is not going to happen.
4
The country is changing it immigration policy, the SCOTUS favors corporations over citizens, the economy is booming, the government is in the hands of the conservative Republican party with a new President, it is 1929.
Sound familiar? In 1929 we were 3 years away from the start of a new era that will bring our country to its most prosperous and progressive time in history. We saved the world from the extreme right in fascism and the extreme left in communism. Labor unions led the way to a middle class that enjoyed prosperity and new freedoms, minorities began overthrowing their low status, women began to assert their rights, and sexual preference became legal. Will all of this be lost because of an accidental President and a political hack running the senate?
Rather than despair, I look forward to the return of the spirit of 1932 that gave us the Roosevelt revolution. We will do it again!
8
The NYTimes and the Washington Post may spend a great deal of time bemoaning the obvious. The reality of everyday life is played out only at the Ballot Box, all that remains is crying to the wind. Elections do have consequences.
We have spun into the twilight zone, we have a two-party system completely devoted to the monies needed to win elections, which gives total control of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches, winner take all. It is clear that these building blocks so carefully laid by the Parties to win and therefore fulfill the needs of the donor-class, huge Corporations, and the naive loyalists. There is no one who does this better than the Republicans, for them the Party line in much more important than our Consitution.
Unfortunately, we Americans seem unable to want to know that Russia more than likely influenced our election and how. Until we are able to learn the truth we are falling down the rabbit hole into the abyss, unchartered territories.
5
Sorry to say, but it may be too late for any vote to make any difference. Trump will most likely have named 4 SC justices before the 2020 election. It will be 7:2 conservative. And with the court so well stacked, expect new laws to further entrench republican (Trumpist) power (eg germandering, voter suppression, expansions in executive power, restrictions on the free press). I fear for your democracy. It is being plucked one feather at a time. It is no longer unthinkable to imagine Trump as president for life. This isn't without precedent. The same scenario has played out in Russia and is playing out in Turkey, Hungry, Poland, Venezuela, etc.
16
The 1960s were just a blip--there's nothing "dark" about that--human nature isn't something to sanitize or pathologize. For too long, the Court was used to promote all these sunny, overly optimistic "peace and love" style values. No more. Deep down, Americans prefer the near to the far and the familiar to the strange. Liberals claim they revere science but forget about the persistence of Dunbar's Number, which proves that you can't equally love all seven billion humans on the planet. Traditional Americans are finally putting themselves first again.
1
Unfortunately, it is too late. It will take decades, perhaps longer, to reshape SCOTUS. In one week, in successive 5-4 decisions, the court commenced the attack on unions, the LGBTQ community, pro-life supporters, immigrants and anti-trust laws. Rest assured, Trump's next appointment will further tilt the Court, a Court that has exhibited an ever increasing political temperament in the past few decades. No change can take place during most of our lifetimes. I wonder what the "I just can't bring myself to vote for Hillary" block thinks now.
22
Disillusioned-you are right. Hillary was an illusion, reality is the DNC picked the wrong candidate. And, they still refuse to go progressive.
2
" I wonder what the "I just can't bring myself to vote for Hillary" block thinks now."
Stop that garbage. Hillary won by over 3 million votes. It didn't matter.
I wonder what the "we'll nominate the most unpopular, pro-establishment, insider candidate we can find, regardless of how much we have to cheat to do it" crowd thinks now.
1
Have you forgotten that Hillary handily won the primary vote? Bernie’s wins were almost all in caucus states - a good test of nothing except which candidate’s supporters have more free time.
1
There are many factors that contributed to this state of affairs. Some of the more important ones are:
Senator McConnell's and the Senate Republicans' willingness to destroy political norms and civility by denying Obama's choice of a justice and ending of the filibuster.
The inability or unwillingness of Democrats to adequately respond to the chutzpah and machinations or the Republicans. In game theory, "crazy" often wins, at least in the short term.
The electoral college which is antiquated, useless, and part of the problem in denying the voting preferences of the majority.
A radical yet possible solution to the SCOTUS problem may be for a Democratic President and Senate to, if ever a reality, to add liberal justices to the court, as the Constitution does not stipulate the number has to be nine.
24
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/joe-biden-argued-for-dela...
The electoral college is BRILLIANCE still on display from the founding fathers, it is the only thing stopping a miniscule piece of America from deciding the leaders of the vast majority of the country.
The country desperately needs VOTER I.D. to ensure that the vote is LEGAL.
1
If you are speaking for voting it is impossible for "miniscule piece of America from deciding the leaders of the vast majority of the country". However since Trump lost the vote by a significant number a lesser piece of America it absolutely resulted in a minority deciding the leaders of the vast majority of the country.
But the while point Electoral College was to allow miniscule piece of America (those in the EC) to decide on the leaders of the country. In fact was established to prevent a Trump-like character from taking over the country. It failed. Not brilliant at all.
Not brilliant unless, of course, one favors authoritarian rule and an oligarchical power structure.
1
I take exception to your view of the Electoral College. Without it the country will be at the will of the largest 10 cities. That along with the voting practices of the dead, illegal and multiple make it less than an accurate reflection of the people's will.
This news is so hard to process without becoming angry and bitter. But I think a key point that is often lost here is that the right is able to game the system because its voters know that the rewards will be based around to all. The right knows that their political and ideological wish list will be a serious priority to the candidates they vote in. This faith is what drives people to vote and fo inest in candidates. Democrats often run on one issue and then turn around and serve a different constituency. This type of betrayal is why the Democrats can't count on the same loyal voter turnout. Voters don't come through for candidates if candidates dont come through for them. This is something the right knows and it is how they manipulate the system. Our best defense would be to use the same tactics - to earn the same trust - to make voters believe their politicians are on their side.
4
Dems knew (or should have known) the system as well as Repubs. Instead, they were too busy, or bored, or cool to vote in tiny little local elections. These feed into larger state legislatures, which then provide members of Congress. The system hasn’t changed, and it hasn’t been gamed. Dems have been looking back fondly on their victories in the 60s and 70s for way too long, while Repubs have been slowly grinding it out it the background. This pattern has been going on for decades. Well, now it’s gonna take decades to modify it.
3
Time to consider term limits for Supreme Court judges.
Sad truth is that they have become as partisan and divided (although,they are still civil with each other) as rest of the nation.
This way the electorate is not stuck with lifetime appointees and can use their votes to influence appointments.
28
OK, I’ve considered it. How do you propose ACCOMPLISHING that?
A commenter in a previous article on Kennedy's retirement commented on the lifetime appointment of Federal judges, which should be revisited. Maybe lifetime appointments made sense when the Constitution was drafted and 60 was considered ancient, but with people living into their 80s and 90s not so much so today. Whether a push for an amendment to the Constitution to make such a change (such as a 15 year limit, staggered terms) would gain any traction is another story, but for those lamenting the prospect of partisan judges - left and right - sitting on the bench for the next 40 years, perhaps that's where the energy should be focused.
19
“Won at the ballot box”, where it should have been won all along. The “we won the popular vote” argument is bogus - Dems knew the rules just as the Repubs did. But, for almost two generations, the Republicans have used the system intelligently and strategically. Dems have been busy “occupying” and marching. Repubs have turned out for and won in tiny “uncool” local and state elections, which enabled them to redistrict. Dems didn’t bother. This enabled Repubs to win in Congress, which enabled them to control the levers of power, and now, they’re going to win the Court. Dems have been overconfident, fragmented for years, and uncompromising. Now they’re reaping what they sowed.
11
I just reviewed the 2017 Pew report on american attitudes towards abortion; the majority in all but one demographic think it should remain legal.
Democrats should not promise what they can't deliver , stopping Trump appointing a Supreme Court Justice, but they can use this to rally votes in the fall.
Time is on the side of progressives because most young people are progressives .
YES, GET OUT THE VOTE AND WIN AT THE BALLOT BOX.
12
If the majority of people think abortion should remain legal, it wouldn't need some nebulous protection in the penumbras and emanations of the Due Process Clause.
I am so disappointed in Justice Kennedy, especially if he swallowed whatever snake oil promises Trump made to him. For the sake of the country, and the majority of Americans who did NOT vote for Trump, could he not have waited at least until after the new Congress to be elected in four months is seated in just seven months, and after Robert Mueller's investigation was concluded? If that investigation shows, as I think it will, criminal misconduct in putting Trump into the White House, how can any judge nominated by Trump retain any legitimacy -- ESPECIALLY any Supreme Court justice? And given how improbable it is that any of them would resign even if Trump were impeached, how can Justice Kennedy not understand that he has grievously betrayed the trust and respect many of us still had in the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary? Most Americans voting for President have chosen the Democrat in six of the last seven elections, and yet here we are, about to skew the Court hard right in line with a hard-line minority politics.
His retirement at this time will go down in history as a turning point. I want MY voice regarding this nomination to be heard, as McConnell so unctuously claimed as the reason to deny Judge Garland a hearing and confirmation in 2016. No Supreme Court nominations to be heard or confirmed in 2018! Call your Senators today, tomorrow, and every day.
26
Mitt Romney was directionally right. Most of the country is locked into their chosen party and a "center" of anywhere between 10% and 30% are independent of feckless party fealty.
The challenge is to capture the center.
The means to capture the center is to nominate candidates who advocate policy that matters to the center. This changes by geography, but is consistent thematically.
The center of this country's electorate resides in the white middle class majority. Confusing the mathematics of elections with the political ambitions of the core extremes will cause the democrats to lose again.
Right now, the republican core voters are more active politically and more numerous than democratic core voters. Only recently are their core values beginning to materially offend the core; eg, school shootings, separating children from parents, etc.
What's worse is that the democratic party is tone deaf to the issues that matter most to the white majority and the political center.
What's worse than that is democratic voters do not vote commensurate to their numbers; (for those who scream that Hillary won the popular vote, who cares, it doesn't matter in an electoral college system).
So, talk to those whom you know in the center and try to persuade them to the bright side of the road.
Contact your party and let them know you want the center addressed, not the extreme.
Then vote.
It's really that simple.
4
I usually avoid NYT letters as most are ill tempered, whining outbursts but there are of course good and thoughtful ones. Your views on the importance of remaking the "middle" for our political system are entirely in line with my thoughts and those of many others. The problem seems rather that the parties in power are now more in a "winner take all mode" and see the political process as a means of taking over the government rather than simply running it. All sorts of political accidents and untoward events occur in that scenario. If you go for it all you risk losing it all. Both political parties are failing the majority of middle leaning Americans and the solution for this is far from obvious or simple.
2
I totally agree with those commentators who stress the need to "vote vote vote". That being said I note that here in rural Western NYS the turn out for the Democratic primary in my county earlier this week was around 8 percent.The Dems have to get the word out to rural America about the importance of each and every vote this year.
11
Conservative judges follow the constitution, not the flavor of the day. Democrats want outcomes from the court they judge to be “right”, not necessarily constitutional. It is absolutely ok in the Democratic view to force workers to pay union dues as their “fair share” while Unions support candidates and causes they do not agree with. No 1st amendment issue here, just Union power. There appears to be no legal philosophy at all on the left side of the bench. Can anyone explain RGB’s judicial thinking other than it is a plank in the Democratic Party’s platform? I see actual thought by conservative judges, based on the constitution, and as such, their opinions are not in lock step on every decision. Not so the liberal side of the court, they vote as a block, invoking a flexible interpretation of an “evolving constitution”.
3
This is trump’s court not a constitutional court. He is appointing only those who will do his bidding. In the past judges were more open minded...none of trump’s court will rule in favor of constitution over him. The day of the Constitution is over in this country.
4
"Conservative judges follow the constitution"
When you start with a lie you can't expect people to follow beyond except for those who agree that corporations are people and the words "A well regulated Militia" have no meaning.
Yes, for all the talk about how horrible "conservative" justices are, you see cases like Roberts saving ObamaCare. Yet you NEVER see leftist justices every stray from conventional leftist thought.
Maybe voters are just a little tired of leftist thought?
Even with all of the incredibly unfair problems that she had to deal with, Hillary was the people's choice at the ballot box and yet her opposite was installed. Even though we elected Obama twice in a row, it was his opposite who installed the latest Supreme Court member, and so we don't have a Court that reflects what we said we wanted when we voted for him. Gerrymandering and vote suppression are rife and efforts to eliminate them are failing. Dark money has successfully restructured federal taxation to exacerbate gross income inequality despite how little the public supports Citizens United and our executive branch operates brazenly against our allies. Poll after poll shows how unpopular the White House is and yet it appeals only to a minority base of mostly white men. I always vote carefully and always will. I encourage us all to do so, but I doubt that it will happen. Far worse, I think it's time to admit that the country has been thoroughly corrupted and that for the first time, voting honestly doesn't matter. Even if the results reflect our actual choices, the people we elect can't do anything. We need more solutions than just voting.
12
As long as there are discouraged folks who believe "voting doesn't matter" we will suffer under the rule of those we do not want. Take heart. Your vote does matter. The founders of our nation did not intend the people to be ruled by oligarchs and kings, but those elected to serve. If you do not vote, you cannot have a hope of things getting better. Get out there and vote and get everyone you know to vote. Start by voting in your local elections for local people. Just do it.
Justice Kennedy knows full well today's politics. He chose to leave now, enabling this Senate likely to confirm a right wing extremist to be nominated by Trump.
He might have waited until after the elections to see whether Democrats had taken control of the Senate, which would have forced either a perpetual 4-4 tie on difficult cases or for Trump to nominate someone at least more in Kennedy's mold. Had he waited a mere six months to retire in January, that would have been possible.
By retiring now, his true legacy will likely be to have handed the seat to a right wing Federalist Society idealogue for 40 years. That legacy will supplant those few good services his provided on individual rights such as abortion and gay marriage.
Don't blame Trump or McConnell; they will do what is their nature in the most predictable manner. Blame Kennedy; he remains a conservative Republican who has willfully enabled Trump and McConnell. This is the capstone on Kennedy's career, and it is an ignominious one.
55
Right-wing extremist: someone who understands and respects the Constitution.
This would be a good time for Democratic Senators to remind everyone in every public statement and every interview that Trump did not win the popular vote. More voters wanted Hillary Clinton making SCOTUS picks than Donald Trump.
We have a President who lost the popular vote, who will get his nominee approved by a 51-49 Senate, to give right-wing Republicans a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court for the next 35 years. It is a fluke beyond comprehension, and although this nomination cannot be stopped, it might incite greater voter interest in the November mid-terms when Dems must take back the Senate to protect the 4 remaining seats and begin the rebuilding of the nation.
24
Subtract California's kindergarten voters and Trump wins convincingly.
The current activism of new and young voters must accelerate. Women and minorities must become even more active in local politics.
Elections have consequences as proven by the last 3 years. We, the people, have to regain at least one part of government to protect our freedom from mthe extremists in the Republican Party. Resist and Vote.
11
Which Constitutionally-enshrined freedom is threatened by an originalist justice?
Now that the horse is out of the stable because of the DNC's calculated decision to fix the Presidential nomination process to further Hillary Clinton's candidacy, who then went on to further damage the democratic process by denigrating a significant proportion of the electorate making it clear that it was pointless for them to vote for her, Democrats now are calling for a return to [horrors!] the electoral process which, if they're serious about regaining power, will require them to at least rhetorically advance the concerns of the working class.
Whether they can reverse their ill conceived if not culturally driven course and, more importantly, whether that constituency will accept any purported change at face remains to be seen.
6
Oh. give it a rest. Bernie people are just as bad as trumpers- willing to bite off their noses to spite their faces. Democrats need a winning strategy not self righteous, bitter rehashing of the last election. We can't address income inequality, women's, worker, minority and gay rights if we dont win elections. And one democratic primary win in one NY district is nice but won't change much.
2
Oh, right. It's all the Democrats' fault that we are in this mess with a sadistic self-absorbed megalomaniac in charge. It's always the Democrats' fault. If only they had been good Christians like the Republicans and voted for a better guy (and I mean guy), none of this would have happened. Except, hey, it was the Republicans who "elected" this guy and who collude with him in his many ugly and un-American endeavors. No--this isn't on the Democrats. It's on all of you Republican voters out there who gave us Trump. Enjoy your moral sanctimony. At least he doesn't use a private email system--oh, wait...
1
The most disturbing aspect of Janus and other recent 5-4 decisions, impacted by Gorsuch in particular, is the willingness to disregard the fundamental requirement and role of stare decisis in our judicial system. The doctrine of deferring to prior case law precedent is a key underpinning of our system that fosters a consistent development of legal principles and, in the words of the Supreme Court, “contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.” Although there are times when precedent is not followed and the prior precedent is clearly wrong and is analyzed as such, such as when Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, the “conservative” members of the current Court increasingly and casually dispense with the rigorous analysis previously considered a requisite for overturning precedent. The distinct danger is the politicization of the judiciary. Mitch McConnell and justices like Gorsuch will go down in history as traitors to the Constitution and the independence of the judiciary.
Voting in the next election is not enough. Every concerned American needs to actively campaign for good candidates and, even if it seems futile, call their Republican Senators and Representatives on a regular basis to demand that they fulfill their constitutional duties.
6
I'm sure that if the shoe was on the other foot, you'd be just as concerned, right?
It must be won at the ballot box, but it can also be lost there. A democracy is only as good as its voters. This is not a reassuring thought.
15
Republicans have always known that real change happens at the Ballot box. That's why it is so important to maintain the integrity of our Election system. The fact that so many states would allow people to register to vote without ever having to prove they are citizens does more to undermine our democracy than anything Trump has ever said or done
For Democrats, who increasingly turn to harassment, intimidation, and violence against political opponents when elections don't go their way, a return to using the ballot box instead of Alinsky tactics to win the hearts and minds of America would be a refreshing change.
5
The die has been cast. Not sure if voters can radically change it. So while the midterms are important, there're too late to stop the perversion of justice foisted upon us by the GOP, starting with the deferral of Merrick.
That we have gotten to this place, where the USSC has become another battleground for political games. Whereas, prior to Reagan, nominations were predicted upon judicial qualifications irrespective of political or ideological affiliation, today there's a litmus test.
The role of the Court is to dispassionately adjudicate and extrapolate laws and the Constitution outside of the political theatre (legislatures). It works best when its decisions are not fully known prior to the hearing. In the last term, only Justice Kennedy's vote was viewed as "open". I doubt, his successor will play the same role.
With each appointment a lifetime one, the composition of the Court is skewed to the predilections of the nominating President and the Senate of the time. The current situation is dire and deeply disconcerting.
Regardless of the contemporary composition of the Congress (HR and S)—the "will of the people"—the Court is a remnant of a previous era. It would be better, IMO, to have term limits that cut across specific administrations (like the Director of the FBI).
4