The Supreme Court is returning to a new term to take up some familiar topics — guns and abortion — and concerns about ethics swirling around the justices.

The year also will have a heavy focus on social media and how free speech protections apply online. A big unknown is whether the court will be asked to weigh in on any aspect of the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump and others or efforts in some states to keep the Republican off the 2024 presidential ballot because of his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Lower-profile but vitally important, several cases in the term that begins Monday ask the justices to constrict the power of regulatory agencies.

    • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Balance the court. It’s already been packed by McConnell starting in Obama’s second term. It should just be tied to the number of federal appellate courts.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Honest suggestion: let’s eliminate the court’s fixed size requirement, and simply add a permanent justice in the third year of every presidential term.

      If the total number of justices falls below 7 at any time during a president’s term, the president may make one additional permanent appointment per term. Permanent appointments must be confirmed by the senate.

      After making that second permanent appointment, the president may make temporary appointments to bring the total to 7. For these temporary appointments, the president may elevate any previously confirmed circuit court judge directly to the supreme court without additional confirmation. Any other nominee must receive Senate confirmation.

      Any temporary appointment expires in the third year of the following presidential term.

            • I like to see 50. No more 5-4 decisions. Conservative views might get the attention they deserve. If it wasn’t possible to so blatantly stack the court with a few votes, they wouldn’t have overturned 250 years plus of gun control laws.

              Make no mistake, these justices are extremist. The people who think the shit they think in law school are ostracized and called out as immature weirdos.

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                1 year ago

                they wouldn’t have overturned 250 years plus of gun control laws.

                What 250-year-old gun control law did they overturn?

                The only overturned gun control laws I know of that originated before 1773 were either repealed 232 years ago with the ratification of the 2nd amendment, or were discriminatory on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, previous condition of servitude, etc, and overturned by much earlier courts and/or legislatures.

                To my knowledge, these justices overturned no laws originating earlier than 1960.

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                1 year ago

                Every president gets 4 appointments per term. No vacated seats are ever refilled. They currently serve, on average, 28 years. Without the need for strategic retirement, we would probably end up with 32-36 people on the court.

      • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not like they’re going to resign and there’s no mechanism to remove them so, uh, unless you’re advocating violence I don’t see how that’s going to work. I think we need to pack the court up to around 17 justices and get back to the business of government instead of playing activist on guns, civil rights, corporate power and abortion.

          • seaQueue@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Right, but that mechanism presupposes functional government and about half of the government doesn’t give a shit about governing, or anything other than seizing power at the moment, so that’s not going to happen.

          • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m unsure what the standard is for removing Supreme Court Justices, but failing to recuse yourself from cases where you have a considerable appearance of conflict of interests should be one of them. For example, say, you took a large gift from somebody who would later be affected by one of your decisions, Clarence.

            Also, there should be some automatic impeachment and removal for justices who lied under oath during their confirmation hearings. I think there is video evidence of most of the conservative justices saying that they considered Roe to be precedent, which means that they wouldn’t overturn it. That was clearly a lie.

            If I lied during my job interview about something important, I would expect to be fired. And they should, too.

        • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I’m disabled, so not me personally, but frankly when it comes to conservatives that have devoted their lives to causing as many other people to suffer as possible, yeah, I’m advocating violence.