T. Greg Doucette: Hold 👏 oversight 👏 hearings 👏

Hold 👏 oversight 👏 hearings 👏

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday turned down an invitation to meet with Senate Democrats to discuss what the lawmakers called an “ethics crisis” at the Supreme Court following reports of two politically charged flags displayed outside the homes of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Chief Justice Roberts declines to meet with Democrats on court ethicswww.washingtonpost.com Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse proposed a meeting after reports of politically charged flags at the homes of Justice Samuel Alito.

You don't need the Justices to show up. Trump never showed up to the January 6th hearings and it was probably the most important piece of oversight Congress performed in my lifetime

JTDC few things infuriate me like Congresscritters refusing to do even the most basic part of their f*ckin jobs

We need to figure out a workable solution to the permanent campaign footing our Congressppl are on, b/c it makes it impossible for them to do their real jobs. I don't know what the solution is, but our legislators working a full time job just on fundraising is incompatible with good governance.

Wyoming Rule, increase the House to 600ish members. Smaller districts, less campaign spending needed, more time to legislate Senators have no excuse IMO

It infuriates that expanding the electoral college is never brought up compared to expanding the Supreme Court or statehood. It seems like an easier political sell to argue that the size of the House of Representative should increase in proportions to population size.

I’m not even saying that it’s better or worse than the other options, I’d just like to hear it in the Democratic political lexicon

YES! More like 1000 members though, please. All it takes is an act of Congress.

Even Wyoming Rule is insufficient. 580k/district is still far too large. WyomingX3 is more like it.

Why would smaller districts lead to lower campaign spending in total and less need to raise money?

Two separate issues: ➡️ fewer constituents + fewer media markets per average district reduce both TV ad spend and direct mail spend, the main outreach costs for most non-POTUS campaigns ➡️ More seats reduces per-district PAC spending b/c they're buying comparably less influence

It's just so striking watching AOC work It's not even just that she's better at her job than the rest of them, it's that she actually treats "being a member of Congress" *as* her job!

It helps that she is especially famous and has a huge base of fundraising support, but we can't count on that for every Congressmember and the result is the complete neglect of legislative work by the actual legislators, who pawn it off to random 20-something former campaign volunteers.

Soft disagree. Keeping them out of the House has its merits.

Old enough to remember when Congress enjoyed a good public spectacle of a hearing.

They still do. Just for university presidents or whatever other culture war of the week they want to do political theater about.

My knowledge of civics is lacking. Which congressional body has oversight, the Senate or the House.

Both. Either chamber can hold hearings. But House Republicans will never investigate their own

"ugh it might be hard though"

To be fair, given how few of them understand the 1st Amendment, not to mention the rest of the Constitution, they might not know what their job is besides getting on Faux News to scream about how the otherside hates 'Merika.

Also if Roberts won't turn up, subpoena the other justices, and retired justices

Absolutely And when they defy the subpoena, refer them for prosecution *Drive home the narrative that it's acting like an Imperial Court*

They should subpoena SC nominees so that they can compel them to answer questions rather than politely decline or talk around them. Make their presence involuntary.

Get Anthony Kennedy's ass in there to explain the ways in which his majority opinion in Williams v. Pennsylvania is implicated by Alito's conduct.

Subpoena their clerks. Get them on record refusing to come so you have an ironclad reason to vote against their confirmation in six years

If they are nominated anyway, spend their entire confirmation hearing asking the questions they won't answer now.

Yessss. Let’s get salty New Englander David Souter up there.

If nothing else, retired justices trying to claim immunity? via separation of powers would make for a heck of a case.

Subpoena all of them. Hold any in contempt that do not honor the subpoena. Enforce the contempt of Congress through litigation.

And subpoena Leonard Leo.

And if you hold oversight hearings, only let your best people speak out loud during those hearings!

What if instead we have a lot of handwringing about checks and balances and what the founders intended while using none of the powers explicitly enumerated?

"At his Senate confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts assured America that 'Judges are like umpires.' But professional baseball would never allow an umpire to [fly] the pennant of one of the two teams..." www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/o...

Opinion | Jamie Raskin: How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas to Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Caseswww.nytimes.com Can they really decide for themselves whether they can be impartial?

Power corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Fuck this nice shit. Subpoena. If they don't show, issue warrants. They do not get professional courtesy anymore.

But Alito and Thomas will meet with Mike Johnson by himself. See, that's not "Congressional Oversight". That's just party loyalty.

Impeachment and remove him!

That’s what should be done! “We want to have a secret meeting with you guys” was a bullshit thing and Roberts was right to reject it. Now, I’m also sure Roberts doesn’t want public hearings either but too bad for him.

Someone leak a story that they have the secret docs that prove Hunter Biden is a reptile Illuminati & they will all be having hearings.

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