President Joe Biden promised Black voters Wednesday that he would appoint progressives to the US Supreme Court if elected to a second term, suggesting he expects vacancies on the high court over the next four years.
“The next president, they’re going to be able to appoint a couple justices, and I’ll be damned — if in fact we’re able to change some of the justices when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we’ve always had, tell me that won’t change your life,” he said during a campaign rally in Philadelphia.
It was as explicit a warning as Biden could offer about the stakes of the upcoming election, and a clear reminder that some of the nine justices have entered their seventies.
Clarence Thomas is 75 and Samuel Alito is 74; both are conservative and appointed by Republican presidents. Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal who was nominated by President Barack Obama, turns 70 next month.
Hijacking this comment thread to promote Ranked Choice Voting.
And theres only one party that has outlawed RCV in certain areas. We aren’t getting RCV without 2 things:
-Primary moderates and elect progressive Democrats at every level we can -A Democratic supermajority in Congress
Not sure what you mean by outlaw, but there are definitely democratic politicians who have shot down RCV on their ballots.
S Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, and Florida have all banned RCV. Bunch of other GOP controlled statehouses have proposed bills to do the same.
I’m sure there are individual legislators in the Democratic party that have shot down RCV but its opposition is nowhere near that of the GOP.
Got it. Yeah nobody in power wants RCV. Don’t be fooled by their inaction.
BillyWitchDoctor.com more comfortable… with chicken
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Shh… He is legend…
RCV, Approval, and STAR my beloved
STAR, score, or approval! Not sure why people are obsessed with ranked, they must love curing ballots and being prevented from tallying districts individually?
100% would rather have ranked over FPTP, just to be clear. FPTP is toxic garbage.
No need to be hostile to them. RCV is pedalled very hard, so naturally people who’ve heard about alternative voting systems will know it first.
Is there good videos on STAR or score like there is ranked or approval? I first heard about alternative voting systems from that one stick figure YouTube guy. Not sure if he’s made any other election based videos I’ve missed or if other people have made equally good ones about other voting systems.
I don’t know if they’ll be as entertaining as a pro YouTuber but there is a webpage with some explainer videos https://www.starvoting.org/videos
Thanks!
Because those still encourage strategic voting. With RCV, you can vote your conscious and be certain that it won’t backfire and help your enemies.
I’d rather a voting system maximize voter satisfaction than minimize strategic voting. And I’d rather have people exhaust their ballots intentionally than accidentally.
What are STAR voters going to do, give everyone either all or no points? Their votes might not be counted in the final round, that’s their choice.
Being forced to vote strategically is why so many voters are dissatisfied.
I mean, you can look at the mathematical simulations of the models or you can argue over the semantics. STAR discourages voting strategically somewhat by having two stages. If that is not enough, even voting purely strategically it has higher voter satisfaction than ranked.
I remain highly skeptical if the idea that many people would engage in strategic voting unless it’s extremely obvious how to do it.
Boo RCV - we should just go parliamentary and stop direct election of the executive branch!
We’d need a constitutional convention. Or the largest amendment we’ve ever had. RCV can be done simply by the states.
Yea, if RCV is all we can get I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good… and hopefully with RCV we could get better leadership… but it’d be wonderful if we could get off direct executive elections.
Perhaps with RCV (or whatever) you can elect leadership that will allow that.
Because that’s been going so great for the UK…
The UK has shitty FPTP like we have here but their government never deadlocks. The US government can fail in a very special way where the president can be reduced to only being able to veto legislation while trying not to be impeached and it’s fucking dumb.
We need a government that’s both representative and functional and there’s a reason why modern nations have looked at directly elected executives and parliamentary system and vastly preferred the latter.