[CT27]

(Note: Just to be safe, I'm not advocating violence or hoping this happens, or anything like that)


 What if all nine Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court died tomorrow (say they took a plane ride together and it crashed)?

 The question I'm wondering about (and I got the inspiration for this post from alternatehistory.com) is, what would be the balance of the new court Obama would appoint? How many liberals or left-leaning Justices would he be able to get on? Or would the Republicans filibuster unless they got some conservatives to replace the conservatives that died?

[Klaustrophobia]

.....
 


what if this thread got locked tomorrow?

[An4ximandros]

If the Supreme Court died tomorrow, you'd start parting so hard you'd wake up and realize it was just a dream.   

[headdie]

The judges die? the world will keep spinning and a few day night cycles later new judges will be appointed.  Ultimately the internal politics will change but the end result will be similar to what you get now.

The interesting question would be what would happen if the Supreme Court was abolished for some reason

[Ghostavo]

What if Obama's balls seceded from the Union?

[Mongoose]

What if I had a pony?

[Dragon]

Pointless thread is pointless. It's Poland, not the US, that was stupid enough to put almost every important person in the country (and quite a few not so important ones) on a single plane. And even Poland (hopefully) learned it's lesson by now.

[Aardwolf]

Wtf is wrong with you guys? It's a serious question, give serious answers.

headdie gets a virtual cookie for being on-topic




It's an interesting question actually... regardless of who the President is, if there was nobody on the Supreme Court, could the senate downvote or filibuster every nomination the President makes? If they did, what could be done about it?

Actually the same question sorta goes for when there's any number of vacancies on the Supreme Court, or any President-appointed position for that matter.

E.g. supposing the head of some department was a position appointed by the President, could the Senate effectively kill that department by refusing to approve any nominee? ("refusing" including the filibuster in this case)

[Ghostavo]

Here's a serious answer:

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Filibuster_Derails_Supreme_Court_Appointment.htm

One of the two powers will eventually be forced to change his mind with the threat of public approval and future elections deciding that those representatives are too childish to be in office. The difference between the entire Supreme Court or just a few having to be changed has no bearing.

[Aardwolf]

So... what happens if they won't approve any nominee? (i.e. different from just stonewalling until the President nominates a sufficiently wacko-conservative nominee)

[Ghostavo]

It has no functional difference, either way a nominee will be approved eventually...

[Aardwolf]

  If a nominee is eventually approved, then the scenario is not the one I presented.

[redsniper]

Then we don't have a supreme court until someone IS approved! But that's an extremely unlikely scenario, I'm sure. One side would cave eventually.