Joe Biden worries that the “extreme” US supreme court, dominated by rightwing justices, cannot be relied upon to uphold the rule of law.
“I worry,” the president told ProPublica in interview published on Sunday. “Because I know that if the other team, the Maga Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
“Maga” is shorthand for “Make America great again”, Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Trump faces 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats but nonetheless dominates Republican polling for the nomination to face Biden in a presidential rematch next year.
In four years in the White House, Trump nominated and saw installed three conservative justices, tilting the court 6-3 to the right. That court has delivered significant victories for conservatives, including the removal of the right to abortion and major rulings on gun control, affirmative action and other issues.
The new court term, which starts on Tuesday, could see further such rulings on matters including government environmental and financial regulation.
For better or worse, it’s next to impossible to successfully modify the Constitution without significant support. It has to be ratified by about 38 States (3/4 of the State legislatures or 3/4 of the conventions called in each State). That’s after either 2/3 of both Houses of Congress (2/3 of the House of Representatives and 2/3 of the Senate) propose an amendment or 2/3 of the State legislatures request one via a convention.
In a way, it’s a good thing since it keeps the Constitution from being able to be changed on a whim, and it mostly keeps it from being affected by the political tug-of-war that happens every few years in the US.
It’s also a bad thing, though, as it makes it very difficult to adapt to certain situations that wouldn’t have happened 200+ years ago.
I would argue though that if it’s something that truly needs to be changed by the majority that it would get done.
The problem is the way our politics are today (those in office care more about gaining money to stay in office than their constituency, etc.), and the population being split almost down the middle and adhearing to that mindset (‘my team is always right’) over the common good, makes getting that type of majority almost impossible.
But again, that’s still on us, not our forefathers.
“It’s also a bad thing”
You realise you can change laws? Congress does it regularly. The Constitution primarily restricts the type of laws that can be passed. Congress has huge leeway otherwise.
Laws like the Voting Rights Act or the ones that established the EPA or the CFPB? The problem here is we’ve let a rogue court assume ultimate legislating ability and the only real remedies to that are impractical supermajorities or open conflict between the branches.
“Assume ultimate legislating ability”- Unless you are whining about Marbury v Madison, what on earth are you talking about? SCOTUS doesn’t write laws, they rule on the permissibility of (a small fraction) of them.
“Impractical supermajorities”
Did you just discover what checks and balances are? One should want supermajorities because you don’t want laws based on shaky public support. Do we really think the cycle of each president overturning the previous presidents policy is practical?
The person I was replying to was talking about the Constitution, not other laws.