Challenge: Swing the Gavel In the Other Direction

Something that hit me long ago when thinking about alternate history, and setting about trying to brainstrom my own TL's, is that who becomes President determines the makeup of the Supreme Court.
The modern supreme court is largely thanks to many years of Republican control during the years where the court could be filled (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush). The modern supreme court is therefore rather Conservative.

The challenge therefore is to make the Modern Supreme Court Liberal, whether through active appointment of Liberals or through not getting what one bargained for in a Justice.
 
This is actually fairly easy.

Today, the longest-serving Justice on the SCOTUS still on the Court is Antonin Scalia, who was nominated by Reagan in 1986. Therefore, to start everything off, you want a Democrat elected POTUS in either 1984 or 1980, the latter of which is much easier while the first is second to impossible if Reagan is running for re-election.

I'd start by having Ted Kennedy elected POTUS in 1980. That means beating Carter in the Democratic primaries and beating Reagan in November '80. Sure, it's tough, but it's doable; in fact, RogueBeaver did a timeline on it that I like very much.

Then, breaking away from RB's TL, you have to get President Kennedy re-elected in 1984. By doing this, you've taken care of two seats, one in 1986 and one in 1988 (Scalia and Tony Kennedy's current seats). Unfortunately, in this case, a Republican will undoubtedly win the presidential election of 1988, meaning that seat currently held by Clarence Thomas will be Republican.

Usually, I'd say that the generic GOP president would be re-elected in '92, but because this is a challenge, I get to mess with that.:p So let's say that something (foreign policy, economic, that sort of thing) happens to decrease the POTUS's popularity. So the president is narrowly defeated in '92 by a Democrat. IOTL, Clinton's two SCOTUS appointments were in his first two years, so you only have to have this POTUS serving his first term. To maintain the plausibility, you can have the Democratic POTUS defeated in '96 and re-elected in 2000.

Following this two-term Republican POTUS, a Democrat is elected in 2004. He/She (in the case of Hillary Clinton) takes care of everything as long as he/she is re-elected in 2008.

So there you have it: Just by electing Ted Kennedy as POTUS in 1980, you have most of the Supreme Court being held by Democratic-nominated judges.
 
Not quite that simple - you can't forget that justices may change when they choose to retire depending on who's president. Senate may also be an issue, though that shouldn't be a big deal here.
 
Mortality During the Administrations.

If more judges die when Carter and Clinton are president then they get to appoint more judges they agree with.
 
This is actually fairly easy.

Today, the longest-serving Justice on the SCOTUS still on the Court is Antonin Scalia, who was nominated by Reagan in 1986. Therefore, to start everything off, you want a Democrat elected POTUS in either 1984 or 1980, the latter of which is much easier while the first is second to impossible if Reagan is running for re-election.

I'd start by having Ted Kennedy elected POTUS in 1980. That means beating Carter in the Democratic primaries and beating Reagan in November '80. Sure, it's tough, but it's doable; in fact, RogueBeaver did a timeline on it that I like very much.

Then, breaking away from RB's TL, you have to get President Kennedy re-elected in 1984. By doing this, you've taken care of two seats, one in 1986 and one in 1988 (Scalia and Tony Kennedy's current seats). Unfortunately, in this case, a Republican will undoubtedly win the presidential election of 1988, meaning that seat currently held by Clarence Thomas will be Republican.

Usually, I'd say that the generic GOP president would be re-elected in '92, but because this is a challenge, I get to mess with that.:p So let's say that something (foreign policy, economic, that sort of thing) happens to decrease the POTUS's popularity. So the president is narrowly defeated in '92 by a Democrat. IOTL, Clinton's two SCOTUS appointments were in his first two years, so you only have to have this POTUS serving his first term. To maintain the plausibility, you can have the Democratic POTUS defeated in '96 and re-elected in 2000.

Following this two-term Republican POTUS, a Democrat is elected in 2004. He/She (in the case of Hillary Clinton) takes care of everything as long as he/she is re-elected in 2008.

So there you have it: Just by electing Ted Kennedy as POTUS in 1980, you have most of the Supreme Court being held by Democratic-nominated judges.
This is a good scenario but it can be improved. Carter is the only POTUS that served a whole term that didn't appoint anyone to SCOTUS (besides Andrew Johnson but the Court was shrunk then). Just have Ford win in '76, and the rest takes care of itself.
 
I'm surprised no one has really ever tried to assassinate the SCOTUS. Imagine a disgruntled law student/clerk gets a bomb into the Supreme Court Building during Carter :eek:
 
Wouldn't Dukakis winning in 1988 and getting reelected in 1992(A Tall order but possible I think) be enough to have the court weigh a little more on the left. H.W got two spots with Brenanan's and Marshall's retirement and all of Bubba's appointments were front loaded in his first two years. So Dukakkis could theoretically haven enough to establish a solid liberal wing. It depends if his successor(I doubt Bentsen would run, probably Gephardt or Gore) wins in '96, or how long the GOP holds the White House after his presidency. But I would think you really need the democrats to be in charge for atleast 12 years from 1988 to 2008.
 
Currently, the Court is a 4-4-1 affair. Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas are the conservatives. Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan are the liberals. Kennedy is the swing vote and is ever so slightly on the conservative side. Nonetheless, he swings often enought to make it unpredictable.

So all we have to do is swing one justice. The easiest is Thomas' seat. Let's say Thurgood Marshall is even more upset than OTL that his seat would be filled by a Republican President. So he holds out as long as possible instead of retiring. As it turns out "as long as possible" is until he dies on January 24, 1993, four days after Bill Clinton's innauguration. Clinton nominates a liberal to succeed him. Assuming everything else goes as OTL, we now have a 5-3-1 split favoring the left instead of 4-4-1.
 
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