Because there were not enough justices for a quorum—the court needs at least six and only Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson remained—the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Clever. Appearing to do the right thing at face value coincides nicely with getting the case against you dropped. It’s likely impossible to sue a majority of the Supreme Court if they don’t care to be sued.
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Statement could go like this:
“There are not enough sitting justices to adjudicate important issues before the court as demonstrated by the recent actions of honorable recusals. Therefore I calling for the addition of new seats on the court to supplement the body so it can carry out its important work as a check on Legislative and Executive branches of our government, just as the framers intended. We will begin confirmation hearings for new justices next week”
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Biden has had ample reason to seat additional justices, particularly in the wake of the ACB nomination. But he’s far too friendly with the US Senate to try such a thing.
If you want someone willing to break ranks on this question, you’re ultimately going to need to wait for a governor. If DeSantis had a shot in hell of being president and taking a Senate majority in the process, I could see him trying to pack the court out of spite after losing a few court cases. If a guy like Sanders was a governor and not a Senate buddy-buddy with Schumer and Graham, maybe he would have tried it (but even then I wouldn’t bet on it). I could absolutely see Trump pulling this shit if someone whispered it into his ear at the right moment, but he’d fumble the bag without McConnell sheepdogging the candidate through.
If a lower court ruled against them, they wouldn’t excuse themselves and rule in their own favor.
And claim nothing hypocritical about it.
If a lower court ruled against them, they wouldn’t excuse themselves and rule in their own favor.
Or they would and they’d let the other three justices do the dirty work for them.
Either way, you’d need a particularly career-advancement-adverse lower court judge to even consider advancing this to the SCOTUS on favorable terms.
The lower court’s decision was upheld. A lower court that didn’t have the issue of defendants being asked to preside over their own case.
Sure, but do you think if the lower court decided that the case could move forward, the justices would’ve sat out? I doubt it.
Do you have an example of them doing that? Or are you simply lampooning them despite them making the best decision available.
The six justices were named as defendants in the case.
Makes sense they sat out then. Presiding over your own trial doesn’t make much sense.
Nope that’s not it.
They have the majority, so if they all sit out the SC can’t hear the case.
So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.
Especially since the lower courts decision was to dismiss the case against the Justices who vetoed the SC case
So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.
“the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit”
They upheld the judgment from the lower court. Should they instead preside over their own case? That hardly seems like a better choice than upholding the lower court’s judgement.
They could have provided enough SC justices to have a quorom but not provided any input into the quorom. Essentially, be present and go along with whatever the other justices decide.
There’s nothing in the Constitution about how many justices there has to be. I would argue that if the Supreme Court can’t get quorum we need to nominate Justices until they get it.
