Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Make Congress Great Again

 If the polls hold and Biden wins the Presidency and Democrats win the Senate, then Republicans will be enshrined in the Supreme Court, presumably able to overturn any progressive legislation. However, there is a good argument here that a Congress that is actively able to legislate could enshrine certain Court decisions into law. They could also expressly counteract certain conservative legal principles by writing them into law. For instance, a voting rights act that has language designed to neuter Shelby or a gun control bill designed to overturn Heller.

It's an interesting argument. For a long time, Congress was so dysfunctional that you couldn't rely on them writing good law. Doing this would require overturning the filibuster and likely having a 53-55 seat hold on the Senate. It would also mean likely expansion of the Circuit courts that would likely fail to upset the general public.

Still, it would be pretty cool if Biden is negotiating with Romney and a few others to scuttle Barrett's nomination in return for keeping the Court at 9 justices.

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