Mansfield Fox

Law student. Yankees fan. Massive fraggle. Just living the American dream.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

My Big SCOTUS Plan

Anyone Bush is likely to nominate to replace O'Connor the Democrats will filibuster, either because he's a genuine conservative or because he's seen as some kind of crypto-con. Anyone liberal enough to get the 60th vote on the left will be too liberal for the GOP's right wing, which will filibuster in turn. And the GOP centrists are too mushy to use the "nuclear option".

What's a president to do? Nothing. Don't nominate anybody. Let the Supreme Court fade into Bolivian via attrition. In fifteen years, the two-man Court will come to decisions after an arm-wrestling match between Souter and Thomas. In twenty years it'll be just Thomas, old and alone as Lear, hurling down originalist decisions like proud Jupiter with his lightning bolts. And in twenty-five years, Old Thomas will have passed, and the opponents of Marbury v. Madison will finally get their way. They won't have SCOTUS to kick around anymore.