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14. The subsequent rounds of expanding & contracting the Court (up to 10 in 1863, then seats eliminated so Andrew Johnson couldn't name any Justices, then back to 9 for good in 1869) were all part of the Civil War & Reconstruction, to wrest the Court away from the Dred Scott era.
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15. Dred Scott was a calamity that convinced much of America that the democratic process had been foreclosed. The stability of the Court at 9 since 1869 has greatly rebuilt the prestige the Court lost in 1857.
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16. Even FDR at the pinnacle of his power, having just won over 500 electoral votes and holding over 80% of the Senate, found that Court-packing was a step too far towards making the Court a flimsy tool of politicians for the American public to tolerate.
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17. The Court has always been political in various ways, but life tenure, Justices long outlasting the people who appoint them - these things sustain the Court as a separate branch. Allowing them to just be swamped whenever POTUS wants new roles is banana republic stuff.
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18. McElwee is reaching here (he can't point to any action ever taken by the R caucus) but even so, Senate obstruction can be fixed by the next Senate elections. Expanding the size of the Court is a permanent step. Not remotely comparable.https://twitter.com/SeanMcElwee/status/1107652774852993024 …
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19. Bouie (does the NY Times styleguide require me to call him Bamelle Jouie?) ignores the ideological nature & context of Jackson's move by assuming I'm saying it was originally all about slavery. But rather ignores that Jackson appointed Taney.https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1107720100721950722 …
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20. Craig simply ignores both the history preceding the Garland fight, including prior D filibusters (I started this thread linking to my prior writeups rather than rehash them here) & the drastic difference in permanently changing the size of the Court.https://twitter.com/craigcalcaterra/status/1107727740013346817 …
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21. Yes, we have had power struggles of increasing drama over what the Senate minority or majority can or will do with judicial nominees. But Americans rejected in 1937 the idea that the size of SCOTUS can be a politician's plaything. If we cross that, it's deeply dangerous.
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22. Now, I agree with
@jbouie that the expansions of the Court in 1807 & 1837 were not as openly & solely ideological as what Democrats are proposing today, and were partly practical in nature. That's not a point in their favor!Show this thread -
23. Again, I don't disagree with this thread-it covers history I've been over before & *undermines* the usefulness of the 1837 precedent for today's Dems. My main point: the ideological Jacksonian reshaping of the Court damaged it & the country.https://twitter.com/rachelshelden/status/1107741916773396481 …
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24. Precisely! The Court as it has existed for 150 years, independent of political control, was made possible by stabilizing its size & resisting periodic efforts to break the independence Hamilton envisioned. This proposal would destroy that forever.https://twitter.com/rachelshelden/status/1107746476053225472 …
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25. Direct political meddling was, of course, one of the causes of Dred Scott (Buchanan conspired behind the scenes with Taney), corrupting Alexander Hamilton's vision of judicial independence secured by knowing politicians couldn't just change the courts at will:pic.twitter.com/cf6hAaiT8n
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26. Simplest explanation for the Democrats' effort to change the meaning of the term "Court-packing" away from its historically bipartisan commonly-understood meaning: they wish to disarm the opponents of actual Court-packing of the language in which to express the concept.pic.twitter.com/1vj68wmxpX
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27. You know who sees Court-packing for what it is - the quickest way to destroy the Court as the guardian of the rule of law in America? Ruth Bader Ginsburg. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744633713/justice-ginsburg-i-am-very-much-alive?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter …pic.twitter.com/fl6nf2A4qa
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End of conversation
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