>

Great. So if we all vote random minority group x shouldn't be allowed to own cell phones, or dogs, or wear hats, the feds shouldn't interfere because the Constitution doesn't enumerate those rights?
Other than Robert not likely. Republicans learned a lesson with Souter and they not work hard to make sure the candidates are Federalist Society Approved. Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results. >


Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results.

I mean, they've had that for decades now. How often is it a member of the liberal wing that joins the conservative wing on any decision? The closest one I can think of was Kagan joining in Masterpiece Cake case and that wasn't even on the merits.
I'm ideological uniformity and lockstep voting is the hallmark of liberal Justices. The Democrats work has already been achieved. >

You don't even know what Citizen's United was about do you? You didn't even get the voting right. >

Switches as in consistently votes with the liberals on consequential decisions? Very little to no chance. A conservative appointee may not be totally in line with everything the GOP wants but usually by the time they get to that level they have a well documented history and legal theory which is quite different than the people Democratic presidents would nominate. They may be quite “independent” but not full fledged liberal.
If Dems want to get to a place where there is more equal ideological shift (or even a liberal majority) they need to either wait until conservative judges leave office or alternatively expand the court. Expanding the court would require abolishing the filibuster and there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional. If that happens it would trigger a potential crisis. >


there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional

It's important to note that they'd still have a cloture vote, but the threshold would be reduced to 50 instead of 60. This is to get around some lazy wording in the Senate's construction.
If SCOTUS rules that unconstitutional, I'm not sure on what grounds they could possibly do that. 3 of them are on the court with the same rule (50 vote cloture) in place for their confirmations. Such an absurd ruling would actually merit the expansion of the court justified. >

It may have been a bit unclear but I was actually talking about ruling the court expansion unconstitutional and not the filibuster. If SCOTUS says “these are illegitimate judges” and refused to swear in the new appointments then what happens next becomes a bit murky. Typically the only way for a Supreme Court ruling to be reversed is if another supreme court ruling is issued which wouldn’t happen anytime soon. In theory if Supreme Court justices are making rulings that are clearly unconstitutional then they could be impeached but such a move would require a 2/3rds senate majority. Maybe the executive branch could order the marshals to try to force the newly appointed judges to be sworn in but even then the legal grounds to do that is… well murky at best. If the Supreme Court says “no court expansion is allowed” then I don’t really know what happens next. >


I don’t really know what happens next

It isn't murky. There are only 2 things that happen if SCOTUS rules that expansion is unconstitutional or refuses to sit a confirmed Justice. Either Democrats back down and agree and allow SCOTUS to usurp both the legislative and executive branches and become a completely autonomous body with absolute power over the country and lifetime appointments, or Democrats don't back down and force the appointment of the new Justices by force, even forcibly removing rebel Justices from their chambers.
The constitution is perfectly clear that Congress has the power to expand the court. There is precedent for Congress expanding the court. It was originally 6, went as high as 10, and is now 9. If somehow they managed to block this, then we'd no longer have a functional constitution in this country. >

You won’t see them shift on core issues, but off-radar issues are different.
A good example is Neil Gorsuch. He spent 11 years on the 10th circuit court of appeals, which hears lots of cases involving Native Americans. His experience there means he almost always rules for tribal rights, issuing very strong opinions. >

And then he gets steamrolled by the other 5 conservatives now on that same issue, since his dissent doesn't matter. >

No.  The GOP was burned at multiple points in the latter half of the 20th century by judges that were Republican (or at least nominated by Republican presidents) that ended up siding mostly with the liberal wing of the Court. A few examples: David Souter was expected to be a reliable conservative justice, but didn't have a strong paper trail.  Appointed by Bush Sr., he ended up being a reliable liberal justice by the end of his term.  Roe v Wade  was decided thanks largely to the votes of judges nominated by both Nixon and Eisenhower.  
Around the Roe decision, conservative activists decided that they needed a way to vet justices for conservative bona fides.  They didn't really have a deep bench, and since truly conservative activists were rare in the judiciary they didn't have a good path forward to build up a system to generate conservative justices.  They formed the Federalist Society to build up a deep conservative bench of deeply ideological judges in 1982.  They've been very successful, and following the "failure" of the Souter nomination in 1990, it's become essentially required for a conservative nominee to be a member in good standing to be considered for the Court.  With that, the GOP has guaranteed that they have reliable partisan members in the Court.  No way will one pull a Souter these days. >

The Federalist Society came to fruition thanks to Kennedy and Souter not being reliably conservative enough. So they have a full society vetting nominations to ensure it never happens again. >

Will the people who voted to strip abortion rights and signaled that they would have no problem going after same-sex and interracial marriage wind up being liberal?
No. >

You mean the judges who are following the constitution >

Show me in the constitution where it says gay people can't get married. Or where it says black and white people can't get married. Or where it says anything about abortion. >

Exactly. It doesnt say they can or cannot get married. The constitution doesn't cover it all all.
Which is why we refer to the 10th amendment. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Thus it should be left up to the legislation not scotus judges >

Nice. So if the constitution doesn't protect witchcraft, states should be able to jail or execute you for it? >

No.
It means it's up to the state legislature to make their own witchcraft laws. >

Exactly. States can make a law to jail you for it, and by your logic the supreme court should not err on the side of liberty by interfering with such a law. >

Yep.  Democracies exist >

Great. So if we all vote random minority group x shouldn't be allowed to own cell phones, or dogs, or wear hats, the feds shouldn't interfere because the Constitution doesn't enumerate those rights? >

Except the constitution explicitly says you can't do that >

Roberts the least of an ideologue out of the bunch.  It’s very possible he’ll be called out as a RINO in the coming years. >


It’s very possible he’ll be called out as a RINO in the coming years.

"In the coming years?" He's been decried as some kind of secret liberal almost since he took office - even as he voted almost continuously to support conservative causes, regardless of the law.
I regularly read about death threats against him during the last administration for his imagined betrayals of conservative ideology.
He's a conservative who likes to pretend he's above politics - even though that attitude has left him with no friends on either side. >

True. Roberts angered his party when he assented to save ACA. That assent aside,  Democrats have little reason to believe he puts law above party. >

A Justices job is to determine if a law is constitutional  or not.
Republicans put in judges that make decisions based on the written word.
Democrats put in judges that rule on what they believe the founders meant to say but didn't word that way.
A judge isn't going to just up and change how they view the law. >


A Justices job is to determine if a law is constitutional or not.

SCOTUS does way more than just decide on constitutionality. Like, this is very basic.

Republicans put in judges that make decisions based on the written word.

There aren't many textualists in the conservative wing. Scalia was the big one and he is dead in the ground. They tend to be more originalists, which is a distinct philosophy.

Democrats put in judges that rule on what they believe the founders meant to say but didn't word that way.

What? The conservatives on the court are the originalists. >

Zero. Most conservatives are putting party over country right now if not fully attempting a hostile takeover of democracy. 
No compromise and no negotiation. >

Why is the conversation about how conservatives must migrate towards the liberal wing? Historically, that has happened far more often than vice versa. Just from batting averages, it’s time for a liberal to migrate towards conservatism. >

Can't fucking compare Clarence Thomas's originalism to Neil Gorsuch's textualism to John Roberts's judicial restraint -- nor likewise can you compare Elena Kagan's pragmatic purposivism with Sonia Sotomayor's judicial activism -- with respect to jurisprudence. Furthermore, the Martin-Quinn scores of both Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are a relatively tame center-right, ideologically speaking, consequently making them fairly analogous to Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, respectively. >

There really is no conservative or liberal wing in SCOTUS, only the Constitutional Wing. The difference is that most conservatives are originalists and think the Constitution should be interpreted as written. The liberals want the Constitution "interpreted" based on current understanding. Liberals have tended to use these "interpretations" to make law (as in Roe v Wade) rather than rule on what the Constitution actually says. >

None, 
Thomas,  alito, and ACB are literal insane people 
Kav was a republican operative 
Gorsuch and robberts are your best bet, but only really because Gorsuch seems to actually read the law and Robberts doesn't want to have too many insane things happen on his court. >

Gorsuch is probably worse than Barrett. He was the only one to side with Thomas on a dissent arguing that prosecutors can disqualify jurors based on race. >

It’s odd that you acknowledge Robert’s votes with the liberals sometimes yet you still call him a reliable conservative vote >

Robert's always votes with what the law says.  Sometimes that lines up with what dems want, sometimes it doesn't it depends on the law. >

Sounds like he’s not a reliable conservative vote then >

He will reliably follow the constitution  just like all the others >

Has there ever been a documented example of this? Human beings do change all the time; do Supreme Court justices? >

No they don't change because they spent roughly two decades or more studying the law.  They pretty much become one of two judges


one who respects the written word


one who thinks intent should be deemed over the written word.


You aren't getting nominated to the SCOTUS if you don't follow one of those.
Conservatives want the first because following the written rule slows change and leaves change up to the legislative brach
Liberals want the second because a judge can change what a law means without legislation. Thus "progress" things >

The problem here is that their decisions should not be influenced by their political leanings. They are supposed to make the findings based on the law and the arguments in front of them. >

That has probably never been the case with the Supreme Court.
If that's the goal, then the court can be replaced by an AI. >

Who knows?
What's interesting to note is that, in recent decades at least, some Supreme Court justices have moved more liberal but none have moved more conservative. So there's hope >

Other than Robert not likely. Republicans learned a lesson with Souter and they not work hard to make sure the candidates are Federalist Society Approved. Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results. >


Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results.

I mean, they've had that for decades now. How often is it a member of the liberal wing that joins the conservative wing on any decision? The closest one I can think of was Kagan joining in Masterpiece Cake case and that wasn't even on the merits.
I'm ideological uniformity and lockstep voting is the hallmark of liberal Justices. The Democrats work has already been achieved. >

You don't even know what Citizen's United was about do you? You didn't even get the voting right. >

McDonnell v. US, but go off I guess. >

Switches as in consistently votes with the liberals on consequential decisions? Very little to no chance. A conservative appointee may not be totally in line with everything the GOP wants but usually by the time they get to that level they have a well documented history and legal theory which is quite different than the people Democratic presidents would nominate. They may be quite “independent” but not full fledged liberal.
If Dems want to get to a place where there is more equal ideological shift (or even a liberal majority) they need to either wait until conservative judges leave office or alternatively expand the court. Expanding the court would require abolishing the filibuster and there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional. If that happens it would trigger a potential crisis. >


there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional

It's important to note that they'd still have a cloture vote, but the threshold would be reduced to 50 instead of 60. This is to get around some lazy wording in the Senate's construction.
If SCOTUS rules that unconstitutional, I'm not sure on what grounds they could possibly do that. 3 of them are on the court with the same rule (50 vote cloture) in place for their confirmations. Such an absurd ruling would actually merit the expansion of the court justified. >

It may have been a bit unclear but I was actually talking about ruling the court expansion unconstitutional and not the filibuster. If SCOTUS says “these are illegitimate judges” and refused to swear in the new appointments then what happens next becomes a bit murky. Typically the only way for a Supreme Court ruling to be reversed is if another supreme court ruling is issued which wouldn’t happen anytime soon. In theory if Supreme Court justices are making rulings that are clearly unconstitutional then they could be impeached but such a move would require a 2/3rds senate majority. Maybe the executive branch could order the marshals to try to force the newly appointed judges to be sworn in but even then the legal grounds to do that is… well murky at best. If the Supreme Court says “no court expansion is allowed” then I don’t really know what happens next. >


I don’t really know what happens next

It isn't murky. There are only 2 things that happen if SCOTUS rules that expansion is unconstitutional or refuses to sit a confirmed Justice. Either Democrats back down and agree and allow SCOTUS to usurp both the legislative and executive branches and become a completely autonomous body with absolute power over the country and lifetime appointments, or Democrats don't back down and force the appointment of the new Justices by force, even forcibly removing rebel Justices from their chambers.
The constitution is perfectly clear that Congress has the power to expand the court. There is precedent for Congress expanding the court. It was originally 6, went as high as 10, and is now 9. If somehow they managed to block this, then we'd no longer have a functional constitution in this country. >

You won’t see them shift on core issues, but off-radar issues are different.
A good example is Neil Gorsuch. He spent 11 years on the 10th circuit court of appeals, which hears lots of cases involving Native Americans. His experience there means he almost always rules for tribal rights, issuing very strong opinions. >

And then he gets steamrolled by the other 5 conservatives now on that same issue, since his dissent doesn't matter. >

No.  The GOP was burned at multiple points in the latter half of the 20th century by judges that were Republican (or at least nominated by Republican presidents) that ended up siding mostly with the liberal wing of the Court. A few examples: David Souter was expected to be a reliable conservative justice, but didn't have a strong paper trail.  Appointed by Bush Sr., he ended up being a reliable liberal justice by the end of his term.  Roe v Wade  was decided thanks largely to the votes of judges nominated by both Nixon and Eisenhower.  
Around the Roe decision, conservative activists decided that they needed a way to vet justices for conservative bona fides.  They didn't really have a deep bench, and since truly conservative activists were rare in the judiciary they didn't have a good path forward to build up a system to generate conservative justices.  They formed the Federalist Society to build up a deep conservative bench of deeply ideological judges in 1982.  They've been very successful, and following the "failure" of the Souter nomination in 1990, it's become essentially required for a conservative nominee to be a member in good standing to be considered for the Court.  With that, the GOP has guaranteed that they have reliable partisan members in the Court.  No way will one pull a Souter these days. >

The Federalist Society came to fruition thanks to Kennedy and Souter not being reliably conservative enough. So they have a full society vetting nominations to ensure it never happens again. >

Will the people who voted to strip abortion rights and signaled that they would have no problem going after same-sex and interracial marriage wind up being liberal?
No. >

You mean the judges who are following the constitution >

Show me in the constitution where it says gay people can't get married. Or where it says black and white people can't get married. Or where it says anything about abortion. >

Exactly. It doesnt say they can or cannot get married. The constitution doesn't cover it all all.
Which is why we refer to the 10th amendment. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Thus it should be left up to the legislation not scotus judges >

Nice. So if the constitution doesn't protect witchcraft, states should be able to jail or execute you for it? >

No.
It means it's up to the state legislature to make their own witchcraft laws. >

Exactly. States can make a law to jail you for it, and by your logic the supreme court should not err on the side of liberty by interfering with such a law. >

Yep.  Democracies exist