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Court Packing Catch-22:
1. Dems need at least 52 Senate seats to get 50 votes (Forget Manchin, Tester & whomever flips a red state).
2. The more court-packing talk, the harder it is to win those seats.
3. If you don't campaign on it, it's illegitimate.
Cool it with court packing.
1. Dems need at least 52 Senate seats to get 50 votes (Forget Manchin, Tester & whomever flips a red state).
2. The more court-packing talk, the harder it is to win those seats.
3. If you don't campaign on it, it's illegitimate.
Cool it with court packing.
4. Here's an even bigger problem: Want to get Trump re-elected?
Campaign on expanding the Court to 15 seats, even if you think you have a brilliant mechanism for making it fair.
How about winning an election or two before trying to overhaul the courts?
At least FDR did that.
Campaign on expanding the Court to 15 seats, even if you think you have a brilliant mechanism for making it fair.
How about winning an election or two before trying to overhaul the courts?
At least FDR did that.
5. If you thought I was subtweeting @PeteButtigieg, well, maybe I was. But any Dem candidate who is campaigning on court packing is pandering to the Dem base and is revealing they aren't yet ready for the big leagues. There is a base turnout strategy for 2020, but this ain't it.
6. How did Trump get elected in 2016? Arguably one necessary cause was McConnell keeping Scalia's seat open. The evangelical right knew that the Court was in the balance. So did the left. But the court battle got evangelicals to hold their nose and vote for Trump. Advantage: Rs.
7. And I also noted in April, Wisconsin had a state judicial election between an experienced, qualified, reasonable candidate vs. an inexperienced anti-gay evangelical, guess who won?
Sure, there were other factors, but this election doesn't bode well for this pacing strategy.
Sure, there were other factors, but this election doesn't bode well for this pacing strategy.
8. I meant "packing strategy," but "pacing" is an appropriate Freudian typo. The Roberts Court needs to cross some bigger red lines before court-packing is a viable idea politically. Roberts already knows these risks. Running on packing is way premature and self-defeating.
9. A historical point: Court-packing did not work in 1937 during the New Deal. Historians have shown that "the Switch in Time that Saved Nine" (by Roberts and Hughes) had already happened privately in Dec. 1936, after FDR's re-election but before he proposed court-packing...
10. Threats of court-packing didn't save the New Deal. The turning point was... WINNING ELECTIONS.
FDR won in 1936 on mainstream pocket book issues, not court reform.
But after FDR proposed court-packing, the Dems were throttled in the 1938 midterms (I'm oversimplifying a bit).
FDR won in 1936 on mainstream pocket book issues, not court reform.
But after FDR proposed court-packing, the Dems were throttled in the 1938 midterms (I'm oversimplifying a bit).
