2020 Presidential Election

[JasonEvans]

The Constitution explicitly grants to each individual house of Congress the power to set its own rules. It is an Article I power, not an Article III power. The Court has no authority to interfere, and it has always respected that boundary.

Yeah, there is zero chance the Supreme Court would weigh in on rules of the Senate.

I suspect the poster may have gotten some posts conflated and thought the Supreme Court could weigh in on an effort to change the construction of the Supreme Court (if Dems tried to expand the number of seats on the court). The legal scholars who I have heard speak about this say it is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would find cause to stop a change in its makeup. The US Constitution does not limit the size of the court and there is no precedent for the high court (or any court) weighing in when congress has changed the makeup of the court in the past.

Not saying it is going to happen or whether it would be fair/wise/whatever, but if Democrats have control of both houses of congress and the White House, there would seem to be little the Supreme Court could do to stop them from adding justices to the court.

[PackMan97]

I actually think the DC/Puerto Rico statehood thing is exactly the type of electoral strategy that is wise to pursue for Demcrats in the long term. Like gay marriage, I think it can be phrased in a simple, powerful way such that it can change minds faster than generational change usually happens. "People from DC die for the United States in the military, how can you possibly deny them having a Senator when entire states with lower populations get two?", "People from DC get taxed without representation", etc.

I don't see how DC statehood changes anything. The 23rd amendment gives it three electoral votes. Making it a state would still only give it three electoral votes.

Now, if we want to take the discussion over to the Congressional Elections thread, I'm sure the Democrats would be happy for two forever-D seats to be added to the Senate.

[freshmanjs]

Not saying it is going to happen or whether it would be fair/wise/whatever, but if Democrats have control of both houses of congress and the White House, there would seem to be little the Supreme Court could do to stop them from adding justices to the court.

There really isn't much that stops the SC from making a bad / politically motivated ruling. If the overarching concern here is the degradation of our institutions and politicization of the SC, then why should anyone be confident that the non-political (?) history of the court is the thing that will save us? The primary check on the court is the constitutional amendment process, but there is no way any amendment can get passed right now.

[Udaman]

The Constitution explicitly grants to each individual house of Congress the power to set its own rules. It is an Article I power, not an Article III power. The Court has no authority to interfere, and it has always respected that boundary.

Yes. This is my point. The Senate would change the rules and make it so that you need 60 Senate votes to confirm any judge, add a state, or put in term limits. They would then say that to change that rule you need a 2/3rds Senate majority.

The Dems could not undo it. They could argue about the last point (ie that the new rules can't be changed). That's where the (now) 6-3 court could have a say.

This is going to happen. As I said before, there is simply no way the GOP allow the Dems to have that kind of control. Not if they can do anything about it. And the can. So everyone with the "well, wait until the Dems take over the Senate," is kidding themselves. Plenty of state precedent out there (North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin).

[ClemmonsDevil]

Yes. This is my point. The Senate would change the rules and make it so that you need 60 Senate votes to confirm any judge, add a state, or put in term limits. They would then say that to change that rule you need a 2/3rds Senate majority.

The Dems could not undo it. They could argue about the last point (ie that the new rules can't be changed). That's where the (now) 6-3 court could have a say.

This is going to happen. As I said before, there is simply no way the GOP allow the Dems to have that kind of control. Not if they can do anything about it. And the can. So everyone with the "well, wait until the Dems take over the Senate," is kidding themselves. Plenty of state precedent out there (North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin).

The difference here is that at the state level those are not rules. They are laws which were enacted by a party that controlled both houses and the governor's mansion. This is a discussion of federal Senate rules which are set by the majority leader which are subject to change and not laws in and of themselves. This is a difference at the state vs national level.

[acdevil]

If I’m not mistaken, the senate can’t set rules for following senates. They each set their own rules governing themselves so 50+ is all they would need.

But I was a Bio major at Duke so someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

[ClemmonsDevil]

If I’m not mistaken, the senate can’t set rules for following senates. They each set their own rules governing themselves so 50+ is all they would need.

But I was a Bio major at Duke so someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

This is correct.

[ClemmonsDevil]

https://www.democracyinitiative.org/news/entry/constitutional-scholars-its-entirely-possible-to-reform-senate-rules

It basically comes down to this. The 60 votes to change a rule thing was a convention and subject to change. The method for change is to say a change is needed, like to confirm lower court slots using a simple majority vs 60 votes. This goes to the parliamentarian who deems it improper because of Senate rules...but then the majority party can change it anyway. Thus a new rule is established. Obviously it is pretty easy to change the rules here. Basically you just have to say you want to twice.

[JasonEvans]

Book it, Trump is going to pick Barbara Lagoa because it will help him with Florida's Cuban expat population. Also, Lagoa has less of a legal record than some of the other possibilities and fairly recently won broad, bi-partisan support when she was named to the Appeals Court so she would seem to be at least a little bit easier to stomach for Dems (though I am betting they don't really care who the pick is, they think it is so unfair to pick someone at this point that Trump could select a moderate and Dems would still refuse to vote for that person).

Anyway, there are clear and obvious electoral advantages to picking Lagoa and Trump is all about winning another term at this point. If she is even worth 1/4 or 1/2 a point in Florida, she is more than worth it to Trump.

[Udaman]

Book it, Trump is going to pick Barbara Lagoa because it will help him with Florida's Cuban expat population. Also, Lagoa has less of a legal record than some of the other possibilities and fairly recently won broad, bi-partisan support when she was named to the Appeals Court so she would seem to be at least a little bit easier to stomach for Dems (though I am betting they don't really care who the pick is, they think it is so unfair to pick someone at this point that Trump could select a moderate and Dems would still refuse to vote for that person).

Anyway, there are clear and obvious electoral advantages to picking Lagoa and Trump is all about winning another term at this point. If she is even worth 1/4 or 1/2 a point in Florida, she is more than worth it to Trump.

Wrote the same thing to some friends this morning, pretty much word for word. Lagoa is a 100% the pick. Trump has to win Florida. He knows this. And if he does win Florida, then any of his possible "the election is a fraud" thing becomes easier to argue (because if he loses Florida he finishes well behind in EV).

Not sure if this pick will give him Florida, but that's what he will likely be thinking, IMHO.

[sagegrouse]

If I’m not mistaken, the senate can’t set rules for following senates. They each set their own rules governing themselves so 50+ is all they would need.

But I was a Bio major at Duke so someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

Udaman is wrong in several respects, IMHO, where the H got lost at an HHH rally in 1968.

[duke79]

Book it, Trump is going to pick Barbara Lagoa because it will help him with Florida's Cuban expat population. Also, Lagoa has less of a legal record than some of the other possibilities and fairly recently won broad, bi-partisan support when she was named to the Appeals Court so she would seem to be at least a little bit easier to stomach for Dems (though I am betting they don't really care who the pick is, they think it is so unfair to pick someone at this point that Trump could select a moderate and Dems would still refuse to vote for that person).

Anyway, there are clear and obvious electoral advantages to picking Lagoa and Trump is all about winning another term at this point. If she is even worth 1/4 or 1/2 a point in Florida, she is more than worth it to Trump.

LOL, trust me, DT could pick Jesus Christ for the Supreme Court and the Dems would be unanimously opposed to that choice.

[elvis14]

Wrote the same thing to some friends this morning, pretty much word for word. Lagoa is a 100% the pick. Trump has to win Florida. He knows this. And if he does win Florida, then any of his possible "the election is a fraud" thing becomes easier to argue (because if he loses Florida he finishes well behind in EV).

Not sure if this pick will give him Florida, but that's what he will likely be thinking, IMHO.

And here you have the real issue. A guy that lost the popular vote by 3 million votes nominating a SC Justice to help him win the next election (after he won his first election with lots of help from Russia). I'm sure that's all just OK, I don't see why dems (or people with ethics) would be upset at all. Nothing to see here, just move on.

OK now that the SC thing is out of the way, what are the polls looking like this week?

[Udaman]

And here you have the real issue. A guy that lost the popular vote by 3 million votes nominating a SC Justice to help him win the next election (after he won his first election with lots of help from Russia). I'm sure that's all just OK, I don't see why dems (or people with ethics) would be upset at all. Nothing to see here, just move on.

OK now that the SC thing is out of the way, what are the polls looking like this week?

You left out the word impeached.

Honestly, the rules are the rules. The Dems can't stop it if they don't get 4 GOP defections. I'm just upset that

a) the GOP did one thing, then said they would do it again, but then are doing the exact opposite

b) I'm already getting pushback from GOP friends that I have saying things like "well, the Dems would do this if they were in power." Maybe. But they aren't. And just wait. If the Dems take the Senate, and the GOP can't change the rules, it's going to get ugly for the GOP. Two new states? Yep. Stacked courts? Yep. End the filibuster for budgets? Yep. Executive orders on guns, immigration, global warming? Yep.

It's a mess. And there is no end in sight.

[tommy]

It could get very interesting. Pelosi said that nothing is off the table including trying to impeach Bill Barr to occupy the Senate. I think that would be a really bad move by Pelosi. That would galvanize the base a make Pelosi into a Hillary like target for Trump to gather the same support he got in 2016.

I don't get it. How would impeaching Bill Barr derail the Senate from its goal of confirming a new SCOTUS justice? Even if you could go through the entire process in the House and impeach him in a few weeks, why would the Senate prioritize Barr's Senate "trial" (if the process is the same as it is for a President) over the SCOTUS proceedings?

[Furniture]

Trumps approval v disapproval gap on 538 took a jump up to 10.5% (53.1% disapprove-42.6% approve) today. Last week it was in the 9.5% range.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/

[ClemmonsDevil]

Trumps approval v disapproval gap on 538 took a jump up to 10.5% (53.1% disapprove-42.6% approve) today. Last week it was in the 9.5% range.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/

Abrupt change. Seems too early to be SCOTUS. More related to Trump's terrible week about 10 days ago with comments about vets?

[bundabergdevil]

JE's post on the main board about Duke's Brotherhood's voting and social justice efforts got me checking on the status of the sport's stadiums again. This NBCNews article is the latest run down that I've been able to find.

This is the money excerpt:

"I want to get between 50 and 100 arenas open across the country," said Eugene Jarecki, co-chair of the Election Super Centers Project. "I think each one of them can process about 40,000 people. So do the math on how huge that could be."


If his math and projections are right, his goal is to process 2M - 4M votes at these sites. Live Nation is also working on converting its sites. Foot Locker (I didn't know they still existed, let alone there are 2000+ of them) will do the same thing.

So, this is all going to add up and matter to help with early voting and turnout. Some states that matter have accepted (MI, WI) and some have not (PA, FL). I hadn't realized the depth and breadth of this activity, TBH. All those sites, while open to everyone, are obviously being pushed by athletes and franchises (and their corporate partners) that favor Democrats and are very specifically seeking to turnout the black vote at higher rates than 2016.

This seems like a bigger deal than I originally thought it would be.

[Furniture]

Abrupt change. Seems too early to be SCOTUS. More related to Trump's terrible week about 10 days ago with comments about vets?

He is running out of time to get it back to about the 5 points difference it was in April....the clock is ticking...

[ClemmonsDevil]

He is running out of time to get it back to about the 5 points difference it was in April...the clock is ticking...

Yes. And 5 seems to be the number at which his EC advantage kicks in.