{"id":43856,"date":"2021-06-05T10:23:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T17:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=43856"},"modified":"2021-06-05T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T17:23:14","slug":"everyday-erinyes-269","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2021\/06\/05\/everyday-erinyes-269\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Erinyes #269"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto<\/span><\/strong>, Megaera<\/strong><\/span>, and Tisiphone<\/strong><\/span>. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”<\/p>\n

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because other things were going on, but I knoew I’d get to it eventually, because it is another piece of the Saving Democracy puzzle, and this seems like a good time.
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States pick judges very differently from US Supreme Court appointments<\/h1>\n
Political pressure is focusing on the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.
\nStefani Reynolds\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joshua Holzer<\/a>, Westminster College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The future of the U.S. Supreme Court is politically fraught<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s partisan balance<\/a> has long<\/a> been a hot-button issue<\/a>, and both Democrats and Republicans can correctly claim that the other party bears at least some blame<\/a> for the politicization of the federal judiciary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2016, appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court became even more overtly political when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia<\/a> died and the U.S. Senate\u2019s Republican majority refused<\/a> to let President Barack Obama fill the vacancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This delay ultimately gave soon-to-be President Donald Trump the chance to seat conservative Neil Gorsuch<\/a> as Scalia\u2019s replacement. Four years later, though, Republicans rushed<\/a> to fill the vacancy<\/a> left by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> less than two months before a presidential election.<\/p>\n

Now, with Democrats in control of the White House and \u2013 barely \u2013 the U.S. Senate, some within the party have been calling for President Joe Biden to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> in hopes of reversing<\/a> Republican efforts<\/a> to enshrine conservatism<\/a> within the courts.<\/p>\n

In response to those calling for reform, Biden has created the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States<\/a>, whose mission \u201cis to provide an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

This commission \u2013 which includes scholars, lawyers and political advisers<\/a> \u2013 could look at top courts overseas for ideas<\/a> about how to depoliticize<\/a> the U.S. Supreme Court. But its members could also learn lessons from the states, many of which have already taken steps to insulate their judicial branches from partisan politics.<\/p>\n