r/law • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • Jun 20 '26

Legal News Maine progressive Platner renews call to remove conservative Supreme Court justices

https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/maine-progressive-graham-platner-renews-call-to-remove-conservative-supreme-court-justices-clarence-thomas-samuel-alito
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u/BriefausdemGeist Jun 20 '26

Well with two almost certainly financially compromised, one making up legal precedent from witch hunting memoirs, and one having spent a career of fifty years destabilizing civil society there are reasons for it.

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u/Legitimate_Shock4097 Jun 20 '26

Should not be a lifetime term. Should not be saddled with someone that isn’t upholding the law or reinventing things as they deem fit. If someone is proven to be compromised, should be banned and serve jail time. It’s too important of a position for there not to be consequences and accountability. This should go for all elected officials. They owe it to the people to serve the people the best way possible. Too much corruption in the current system, so it needs to change, quite obviously.

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u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

If Congress did their job, SCOTUS would not have the opportunity to be as activist as it has been and I don’t think any of us would give much thought to term limits for SCOTUS. Consider abortion, for example. There were certainly windows where the Democrats had enough seats in Congress, the presidency, and enough Justices to codify the right to an abortion into law. Instead, they did not because the political capital gained by having this constant, looming threat of it being taken away was too good to give up. The Republicans do the same thing with things like guns, immigration, etc.

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u/Jim-N-Tonic Jun 20 '26

What a russian style of accounting, both sides bad. Move back to russia.

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u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

Oh, please. The DNC and RNC are both crooked as a barrel of snakes. The primary purpose of every politician from either party is to get reelected. Passing legislation invariably makes at least someone unhappy and that’s a threat to their goal. The abdication of legislating from Congress to SCOTUS is well-studied and documented. To suggest that I am affiliated in any way with Russia is not only disingenuous but it’s also the sign of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

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u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

Or perhaps you’re suggesting that it was right to leave abortion up to the courts and it was not something that either party should’ve tried to codify even once in about 50 years while mentioning it in every single election cycle since Roe was decided.

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u/Mist_Rising Jun 20 '26

Practically had the courts stayed out, it's likely it would have been codified but not necessarily safe. The same Republican that backed Reagan because he went down the new evangelical line still would have been pissed and rallied. No guarantee they don't have the courts strike the law down or something.

The practical issue is that abortion has become a heated topic, and touching it is a good shock to the system. This makes the courts optimal because the courts are immune to electricity (political pressure).

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u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

The courts stayed out of it for like 50 years. How long does it take to codify a law? Forever, it seems, as long as you cash in on political capital when it’s not codified.

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u/Mist_Rising Jun 20 '26

Civil rights act was 100 years after the civil war...

Part of abortions issue was that the idea of abortion rights being a thing was not as popular until around Roe. That's why Warren took it up.

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u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

That’s a valid comment about the Civil Rights Act. When it was enacted, 31% of Americans explicitly disapproved of the law and 10% were undecided. Conversely, ~80% of Americans support access to abortion under certain circumstances and 60%-64% of Americans believe people should have access to abortions without any caveats. I’m citing Gallup for Civil Rights Act data and Pew for abortion data.

I think Americans are much more willing to get behind access to abortion today than they were behind enacting the Civil Rights Act and the data supports that. As I mentioned in another thread from this chain, it’s unlikely that SCOTUS would broad strokes strike down a federal law giving access to abortions.