Judge Amy Barret Confirmed As Supreme Court Justice

[Paddy O Fernature]

This has already been explained to you at least once before.

And you're so confident in your gun rights, that you'll freely tell everyone how many guns you have, and what type, and what you consider a reasonable amount of ammo to keep.

We're living in the information age. You should consider how much a Justice raised in Biblical and Catholic tradition knows about privacy or the use of information.

I've literally showed pictures of my collection on this site to others across a couple gun control threads. As for how many rounds of ammunition I have, that literally varies pending which state I'm in as one of the states counts individual components (aka bullet, casing, primer, powder ect) as a live round each independently while the other doesn't.

As for the amount of ammo ect I feel is reasonable, it's not my place to impose pointless limits/restrictions upon others based solely upon my whims. Someone wants to keep a single box of ammo, cool. Someone wants to keep several, cool as well. Someone wants to keep this around for keeping strangers off the lawn, more power to them.

[Picairn]

Do remember that it's the court that decides what's constitutional regardless of the actual text of the constitution.

I doubt the court can modify the actual text of the Constitution. Sure, they can pull extra-constitutional stuff out of the things that the Constitution is vague or absent on, but they can't straight up modify the actual text to be whatever they want.

[Plzen]

-snip-

It really has a lot to do with the tradition of welfare in the United States.

The US has a liberal approach to welfare. People need help, and therefore the government must provide that help at the public expense if necessary. The poor cannot meet their medical bills, so the government will help them get welfare. Those better off do not need help, so no help will be provided.

There are a couple other approaches, but in the one I tend to favour - the social-democratic tradition (also known as the Scandinavian tradition, which really tells you a lot about what sort of countries follow them) - welfare is an expansion to citizens' rights. Citizens have a right to healthcare, and therefore the people have an obligation to contribute to the expense of maintaining healthcare as a public service. Of course high-income individuals shouldn't be excluded from these things. They're citizens, with the rights of the same.

Because of the ideological rationale behind welfare in the United States, it's rather more difficult for Americans to accept the concept of welfare as a public service, compared to people in countries with a Beveridge or Scandinavian traditions.

[Salus Maior]

People who actually want to win generally do.

Stupid. Like Democrats don't want to win now.

Well, now is a bit late for them, isn’t it?

[Novus America]

The Constitution does NOT say the mechanism is immune from the provisions of due process, prohibitions of bills of attainder, prohibition of ex post facto laws.

It doesn't need to, because the impeachment and conviction powers, as well as punishments from them, are entirely different from all those things. The only punishments for Congress' impeachment and conviction are "removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States", as detailed by Clause 7, Article 3. And Congress gets to decide what "high crimes and misdemeanors" mean.

Obviously impeachment CAN be constitutional but that does not mean it is ALWAYS constitutional.

Weird constitutional (mis)interpretation but okay.

The constitution also laws out a mechanism for passing laws. Yet you can still use that mechanism to pass an unconstitutional law. Because one provision does not necessarily override all others. To say that particular article is supreme above, completely severable from, and immune to the rights provided in other articles is a stretch.

Impeachment and conviction, as granted by the Constitution, is just that. And the punishments are also outlined in details. So how does following the process and making proper convictions and removals unconstitutional?

On Clinton he did commit a crime. That really cannot be disputed. One maybe arguably not severe enough to warrant it. But still a crime. Although he was not removed by the Senate anyways.

Neither Andrew Johnson nor Chase were convicted, and had they been, they probably would have raised legal challenges.

The fact that one was over a crime you find minor (and failed to remove him) and the other two might have not been over a legitimate crime (and also failed) is hardly proof that you can successfully abuse it without legal challenges.

No legal challenges arose when the House impeached them. Ask yourself why.

You have little to nothing to support you claim. Just because it lays out the process and penalties does not say no other provisions apply to it. It also says the penalty for treason, it does not say treason trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions though. It laws out other processes, but the result of those processes are not immune to everything else though.

Even with the politically motivated ones there was still a senate trial, that did actually go through steps to ensure some do process, but failed to convict.

Again they all had trials, and were not actually convicted. Impeachment is like being indicted. Being indicted dies not require you have committed a crime. And if you are not convicted, you often have no standing to challenge your indictment. Probably they never sued to challenge their impeachment given they were not convicted, they lacked standing and reason to. They were not convicted.

Sure the actual impeachment does not require proof of a crime, but conviction presumably still does. Showing a few successful impeachments that failed to convict does not disprove that, nor prove your claim the senate trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions.

And just impeaching them and failing to convict is just silly.
What would that accomplish.

[Picairn]

Because those are provisions to ensure the right to a fair trial or hearing.

And Congress reserves the final say. So no, they can still impeach and convict, with votes.

You say senate convictions are severable from, and thus above and immune to all other constitutional provisions but that is a reach. Nothing in the constitution says that.

Senate convictions are not bills of attainder, otherwise it wouldn't have existed in the first place.

After all it has been ruled dur process applies to even to most administrative government hearings, even ones that have lesser rules of it than a regular court case still have restrictions.

Congress still reserves the right to vote to impeach and convict in the end. And they can decide what high crimes and misdemeanors are.

Just because a power exists in the constitution does not mean it is a completely unrestricted power immune to the other provisions in the constitution.

How do bills of attainder and ex post facto laws forbid Congress from impeachment and conviction?

This is a much more complicated issue.

Only because you are pulling out irrelevant stuff.

A constitutional crisis does not always cause a civil war. And the existence of a few (it is extremely rare) impeachment’s that FAILED to convict is hardly evidence it is an effective and legal method. Given you know they failed to convict.

With enough Senate votes then the convictions would have been made.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Do remember that it's the court that decides what's constitutional regardless of the actual text of the constitution.

I doubt the court can modify the actual text of the Constitution. Sure, they can pull extra-constitutional stuff out of the things that the Constitution is vague or absent on, but they can't straight up modify the actual text to be whatever they want.

Yeah, they are bound by the text. However, some conservatives get mad when the text says you can't deny equal protection of the laws, and that is taken to mean exactly what is says. They get mad when courts are not bound by 19th century misconceptions.

[Kernen]

Do remember that it's the court that decides what's constitutional regardless of the actual text of the constitution.

I doubt the court can modify the actual text of the Constitution. Sure, they can pull extra-constitutional stuff out of the things that the Constitution is vague or absent on, but they can't straight up modify the actual text to be whatever they want.

They can interpret it as they see fit, though. There's no recourse other than the process of replacing justices as they age out or quit.

[Novus America]

-snip-

It really has a lot to do with the tradition of welfare in the United States.

The US has a liberal approach to welfare. People need help, and therefore the government must provide that help at the public expense if necessary. The poor cannot meet their medical bills, so the government will help them get welfare. Those better off do not need help, so no help will be provided.

There are a couple other approaches, but in the one I tend to favour - the social-democratic tradition (also known as the Scandinavian tradition, which really tells you a lot about what sort of countries follow them) - welfare is an expansion to citizens' rights. Citizens have a right to healthcare, and therefore the people have an obligation to contribute to the expense of maintaining healthcare as a public service. Of course high-income individuals shouldn't be excluded from these things. They're citizens, with the rights of the same.

Because of the ideological rationale behind welfare in the United States, it's rather more difficult for Americans to accept the concept of welfare as a public service, compared to people in countries with a Beveridge or Scandinavian traditions.

Sure you cannot simply place another countries approach on the US, you can and should approach it differently.
Expanding Medicaid is the solution, it should be noted it was expanded, this expansion was popular, BUT it still needed to be expanded further than that, not just to some arbitrary income cutoff.
Changing Medicaid coverage to criteria to cover all uninsured could be done, would be constitutional, and would not have issues. That was the missed opportunity. Although this runs into another issue, we already had a thread were we discussed in detail how we could provide coverage in the US.

The point is it could be done constitutionally. But that the ACA both failed to actually provide universal coverage and the constitutionality of the (not even currently enforced) mandate is questionable.

Thus it can and should be done better, with more care to avoid constitutional challenges.

[Kernen]

The Constitution does NOT say the mechanism is immune from the provisions of due process, prohibitions of bills of attainder, prohibition of ex post facto laws.

It doesn't need to, because the impeachment and conviction powers, as well as punishments from them, are entirely different from all those things. The only punishments for Congress' impeachment and conviction are "removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States", as detailed by Clause 7, Article 3. And Congress gets to decide what "high crimes and misdemeanors" mean.

Obviously impeachment CAN be constitutional but that does not mean it is ALWAYS constitutional.

Weird constitutional (mis)interpretation but okay.

The constitution also laws out a mechanism for passing laws. Yet you can still use that mechanism to pass an unconstitutional law. Because one provision does not necessarily override all others. To say that particular article is supreme above, completely severable from, and immune to the rights provided in other articles is a stretch.

Impeachment and conviction, as granted by the Constitution, is just that. And the punishments are also outlined in details. So how does following the process and making proper convictions and removals unconstitutional?

On Clinton he did commit a crime. That really cannot be disputed. One maybe arguably not severe enough to warrant it. But still a crime. Although he was not removed by the Senate anyways.

Neither Andrew Johnson nor Chase were convicted, and had they been, they probably would have raised legal challenges.

The fact that one was over a crime you find minor (and failed to remove him) and the other two might have not been over a legitimate crime (and also failed) is hardly proof that you can successfully abuse it without legal challenges.

No legal challenges arose when the House impeached them. Ask yourself why.

Political question doctrine. No matter what the House does, SCOTUS will almost certainly stay quiet.

[Picairn]

You have little to nothing to support you claim.

Said the one who went "yes, but no" on the constitutionality of impeachment.

Just because it lays out the process and penalties does not say no other provisions apply to it.

Nor do those clauses stop Congress from voting on impeachment and conviction.

It also says the penalty for treason, it does not say treason trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions though. It laws out other processes, but the result of those processes are not immune to everything else though.

See above.

Even with the politically motivated ones there was still a senate trial, that did actually go through steps to ensure some do process, but failed to convict.

And what if the Senate had had enough votes to convict?

Again they all had trials, and were not actually convicted. Impeachment is like being indicted. Being indicted dies not require you have committed a crime. And if you are not convicted, you often have no standing to challenge your indictment. Probably they never sued to challenge their impeachment given they were not convicted, they lacked standing and reason to. They were not convicted.

With enough votes the Senate can make convictions. That's the difference between Senate convictions vs. court convictions.

Sure the actual impeachment does not require proof of a crime, but conviction presumably still does.

Presumably... by votes.

Showing a few successful impeachments that failed to convict does not disprove that, nor prove your claim the senate trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions.

Congress still reserves the final say.

And just impeaching them and failing to convict is just silly.
What would that accomplish.

That's why we are debating a hypothetical.

[Plzen]

Changing Medicaid coverage to criteria to cover all uninsured could be done,

And this is my point. The US has a liberal tradition of welfare, and in a country with a liberal approach to welfare the immediate response to any universal coverage like "have Medicaid cover all who are uninsured" is "why should we help people who don't need help".

The ACA was a mess because it is not possible to push through a proper solution what with the American political scene being what it is.

[Picairn]

Yeah, they are bound by the text. However, some conservatives get mad when the text says you can't deny equal protection of the laws, and that is taken to mean exactly what is says. They get mad when courts are not bound by 19th century misconceptions.

The Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment is the most used clause by the Court to protect civil rights and strike down discriminating laws. I believe its importance is only below the 13th Amendment itself, in regard to ensuring rights for minorities.

[Novus America]

Because those are provisions to ensure the right to a fair trial or hearing.

And Congress reserves the final say. So no, they can still impeach and convict, with votes.

You say senate convictions are severable from, and thus above and immune to all other constitutional provisions but that is a reach. Nothing in the constitution says that.

Senate convictions are not bills of attainder, otherwise it wouldn't have existed in the first place.

After all it has been ruled dur process applies to even to most administrative government hearings, even ones that have lesser rules of it than a regular court case still have restrictions.

Congress still reserves the right to vote to impeach and convict in the end. And they can decide what high crimes and misdemeanors are.

Just because a power exists in the constitution does not mean it is a completely unrestricted power immune to the other provisions in the constitution.

How do bills of attainder and ex post facto laws forbid Congress from impeachment and conviction?

This is a much more complicated issue.

Only because you are pulling out irrelevant stuff.

A constitutional crisis does not always cause a civil war. And the existence of a few (it is extremely rare) impeachment’s that FAILED to convict is hardly evidence it is an effective and legal method. Given you know they failed to convict.

With enough Senate votes then the convictions would have been made.

Obviously senate convictions are not automatically bills of attainder.
But that does not make them immune to all other provisions. The Constitution dies say you have a right to a fair trial, (that is why bills of attainder are banned), a right to due process that applies to not only regular court proceedings but also most other government processes, even most those in which you are not charged with a crime. And a protection against ex post facto laws.

Courts have ruled you generally cannot fire a federal employee without due process, EVEN IF congress passes a lay saying you can!

Courts have never said Congress has absolutely unrestricted powers. Thus your claims somehow impeachment is unrestricted by any other provisions is without good basis.

You are making claims without good support. Certainly it is not an established law the impeach trials can be done without any due process.

Had they had the votes, the could have convicted yes, but then the convicted could challenge their conviction. The fact it never got that far is good evidence it is not an easy thing to actually get a conviction with no real crime.
The fact it never got that far does not prove that convicting without any evidence of a crime is constitutional and that the senate trials cannot be questioned.

But anyways what are we even arguing? Yes you could impeach, vote to convict in theory with no crime.
Just as you can pass a completely unconstitutional law or have an unfair trial or hearing. But if you do so you will be probably be challenged. Being able to do something is quite different than being able to do something without challenges or consequences. The Supreme Court still would claim it has the final say.

Almost certainly there would be legal challenges if you convicted. And you cannot prove the court would not hear or support those legal challenges. So you absolutely would be setting up a constitutional crisis. You really think the courts would just surrender without any fight?

Besides you admit this is grossly impractical because the votes are not, and almost certainly never will be there.
You admit is a silly hypothetical, not a practical plan.

[Novus America]

You have little to nothing to support you claim.

Said the one who went "yes, but no" on the constitutionality of impeachment.

Just because it lays out the process and penalties does not say no other provisions apply to it.

Nor do those clauses stop Congress from voting on impeachment and conviction.

It also says the penalty for treason, it does not say treason trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions though. It laws out other processes, but the result of those processes are not immune to everything else though.

See above.

Even with the politically motivated ones there was still a senate trial, that did actually go through steps to ensure some do process, but failed to convict.

And what if the Senate had had enough votes to convict?

Again they all had trials, and were not actually convicted. Impeachment is like being indicted. Being indicted dies not require you have committed a crime. And if you are not convicted, you often have no standing to challenge your indictment. Probably they never sued to challenge their impeachment given they were not convicted, they lacked standing and reason to. They were not convicted.

With enough votes the Senate can make convictions. That's the difference between Senate convictions vs. court convictions.

Sure the actual impeachment does not require proof of a crime, but conviction presumably still does.

Presumably... by votes.

Showing a few successful impeachments that failed to convict does not disprove that, nor prove your claim the senate trials are immune to all other constitutional provisions.

Congress still reserves the final say.

And just impeaching them and failing to convict is just silly.
What would that accomplish.

That's why we are debating a hypothetical.

We are not even debating. You simply claim, without evidence the Senate can convict anyone for any reason without being challenged. That Senate impeachment trials are above and immune to any legal challenges.
Had there been a conviction in those cases there would probably be legal challenges, and likely a constitutional crisis.

The fact that no conviction happened does not prove you claim that a conviction would not result in legal challenges.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

To hopefully lay to rest this issue: there is no immediate procedure for appealing an impeachment decision by the Senate. However, even though the Senate has broad powers to convict, the clause is still not entirely without demands. No-one knows for sure what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' means, but because it is a constitutional question, the Supreme Court has the authority to rule on that issue.

More importantly, even if the Senate had unbridled power to convict, they still cannot use that power to supplant the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections. Impeachment is not a 'get into jail free card' for the Senate to wield however they want. Like any body, they are still bound by the constitution. It would be detournement de pouvoir for them to circumvent all constitutional protections.

Impeachment is constitutional, but the use of impeachment is not constitutional in all affairs.

[Kexholm Karelia]

Say what you want, but now there’s a conservative majority on the Supreme Court no matter who wins the election

Courts should not be partisan based in any capacity.
She is a danger to progressive policies.

Based on your political views, progressive policies are good. Based on my political views, conservative policies are good. So you think this is a bad outcome, while I think this is a good outcome, because we have different political opinions

[Novus America]

Changing Medicaid coverage to criteria to cover all uninsured could be done,

And this is my point. The US has a liberal tradition of welfare, and in a country with a liberal approach to welfare the immediate response to any universal coverage like "have Medicaid cover all who are uninsured" is "why should we help people who don't need help".

The ACA was a mess because it is not possible to push through a proper solution what with the American political scene being what it is.

Well given the expansion was popular, and polls indicate expanding it to all uninsured would be popular means I do not agree that it would be impossible to pass, because one can presume this lacking insurance need help, or that at the very least them lacking insurance is actually quite expensive because everyone is already guaranteed the ability to go to a hospital emergency room without insurance.

You absolutely could sell a comprehensive Medicaid coverage if you sold it well. Or at least raising the income threshold hug enough that it would do so de facto.

But this is a bit off topic.

Expanding Medicaid is not a constitutional issue.

But the individual mandate arguably is. And given the individual mandate was more unpopular than Medicaid expansion, I do not think it was even necessarily politically smarter. Although again if it was politically smart or not is not the topic.

[Celritannia]

Courts should not be partisan based in any capacity.
She is a danger to progressive policies.

Based on your political views, progressive policies are good. Based on my political views, conservative policies are good. So you think this is a bad outcome, while I think this is a good outcome, because we have different political opinions

So stripping rights away from LGBTQ people is good? Restrict access to abortion is good?

Anyone that wish to remove rights for any group of people should really question why they want to do this.

[Kernen]

To hopefully lay to rest this issue: there is no immediate procedure for appealing an impeachment decision by the Senate. However, even though the Senate has broad powers to convict, the clause is still not entirely without demands. No-one knows for sure what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' means, but because it is a constitutional question, the Supreme Court has the authority to rule on that issue.

More importantly, even if the Senate had unbridled power to convict, they still cannot use that power to supplant the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections. Impeachment is not a 'get into jail free card' for the Senate to wield however they want. Like any body, they are still bound by the constitution. It would be detournement de pouvoir for them to circumvent all constitutional protections.

Impeachment is constitutional, but the use of impeachment is not constitutional in all affairs.

It's not really clear if SCOTUS has that power to review. It's a political question of the sort the Court has never considered justiciable. The impeachment and conviction issue is almost entirely outside the purview of SCOTUS based on case law to this point. Stare decisis suggests the Court won't do anything.

[Kernen]

Based on your political views, progressive policies are good. Based on my political views, conservative policies are good. So you think this is a bad outcome, while I think this is a good outcome, because we have different political opinions

So stripping rights away from LGBTQ people is good? Restrict access to abortion is good?

Anyone that wish to remove rights for any group of people should really question why they want to do this.

According to conservatives, yes and yes.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Based on your political views, progressive policies are good. Based on my political views, conservative policies are good. So you think this is a bad outcome, while I think this is a good outcome, because we have different political opinions

So stripping rights away from LGBTQ people is good? Restrict access to abortion is good?

1. Obviously not, 2. I think we've passed the tipping-point, with some states so severely restricting access to abortion that illegal abortion is preferable. Using what remains of personal privacy, at-home abortion services and by-mail (pill) abortion services could serve most of the need for abortion ... basically calling out the moralists to use their laws to invade women's homes. I actually think they'd back off, and if they didn't, the Supreme Court would drag them off. A fundamental principle of Roe v. Wade is privacy and the protection from search. Stack that up with the privacy of a person's home, I think it would be quite strong.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

To hopefully lay to rest this issue: there is no immediate procedure for appealing an impeachment decision by the Senate. However, even though the Senate has broad powers to convict, the clause is still not entirely without demands. No-one knows for sure what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' means, but because it is a constitutional question, the Supreme Court has the authority to rule on that issue.

More importantly, even if the Senate had unbridled power to convict, they still cannot use that power to supplant the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections. Impeachment is not a 'get into jail free card' for the Senate to wield however they want. Like any body, they are still bound by the constitution. It would be detournement de pouvoir for them to circumvent all constitutional protections.

Impeachment is constitutional, but the use of impeachment is not constitutional in all affairs.

It's not really clear if SCOTUS has that power to review. It's a political question of the sort the Court has never considered justiciable. The impeachment and conviction issue is almost entirely outside the purview of SCOTUS based on case law to this point. Stare decisis suggests the Court won't do anything.

They cannot weigh in on the political side, but they have in the past ruled that they can interfere in political matters if the constitution is involved. There are two ways that the political actions of Senators are bound by the constitution, so there is plenty of reason for the Court to get involved. Similarly to how it got involved in the tax returns matter, for instance. They cannot pick the best option for the Senators, but they can decide that the Senate made a decision it could not have legally made.

[The Emerald Legion]

I doubt the court can modify the actual text of the Constitution. Sure, they can pull extra-constitutional stuff out of the things that the Constitution is vague or absent on, but they can't straight up modify the actual text to be whatever they want.

Yeah, they are bound by the text. However, some conservatives get mad when the text says you can't deny equal protection of the laws, and that is taken to mean exactly what is says. They get mad when courts are not bound by 19th century misconceptions.

No. They aren't, or else the NFA wouldn't exist. Not everything is about your sides weird obsession with race.

[Novus America]

Based on your political views, progressive policies are good. Based on my political views, conservative policies are good. So you think this is a bad outcome, while I think this is a good outcome, because we have different political opinions

So stripping rights away from LGBTQ people is good? Restrict access to abortion is good?

Anyone that wish to remove rights for any group of people should really question why they want to do this.

One could make the counter argument about gun rights. Is stripping away gun rights away from the poor and less connected good? Why want to do this?

Abortion is complicated because it involves a conflict of rights. Arguably guns do to.

The problem with rights is sometimes they conflict.

That is a potential issue with some LGBT rights as well. See the whole cake fight.

So it is not so simple as one side being for rights and another side being against rights.

Rather each side wants a different side to be given precedence when rights conflict.