Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — The Court’s composition matters for regulation, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, and above all for the scope of administrative power, which is the question that touches the most law and gets the least attention.
Barrett’s confirmation is a durable consequence of this term and it’s already accomplished. Voters who care about those areas are justified in treating the direction as significant.
The realistic stakes are incremental. Courts move slowly, precedent has weight even for justices skeptical of it, and the revolutionary predictions from both directions have historically been wrong.
On this dimension Trump has delivered something lasting that a Biden administration would work to offset. For voters who prioritize the judiciary that’s close to dispositive.
Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — The Court has become a central prize because Congress leaves contested questions to litigation rather than legislating them.
That’s the underlying problem and neither candidate is going to fix it, because a Congress that doesn’t decide things is a Congress whose members never have to defend a vote.
Trump’s appointments moved the median. Biden has been clear he’d work to move it back and less clear about how. For anyone who thinks the administrative state, religious liberty, or Second Amendment cases matter, Trump is the better choice here.
I’d want people to notice we’re all treating nine appointed lawyers as the main event in a democratic election, and that this is a symptom of something failing upstream.
Bismarck, North Dakota Correspondent — Trump changed the Court. Biden would work to change it back. For a voter who cares about that, the choice makes itself.
What I’d flag is the talk about expanding the number of seats, which has moved from the fringe to a question a nominee declines to answer. If that becomes a live proposal it’s a larger constitutional matter than any single appointment, and it should be argued as one rather than as a procedural adjustment.
Myrtle Beach Correspondent — The Court’s direction is one of the longest-lasting effects of any presidency, and I’d say plainly that Trump has the advantage on this question. That’s an observation, not a preference — I’m voting the other way and I know what it costs on this file.
What I’d add is that the process is doing damage separately from the outcome. A seat filled in eight days before an election, after a seat was held open for the better part of a year, teaches everyone that the rule is whatever the majority can do. That lesson gets used by whoever holds the majority next.
Knoxville, Tennessee Correspondent — Significant. The Court is how a country decides whether a question belongs to a legislature or to nine people.
The stakes over four years are guns, speech, agencies writing law between Congresses, and the leftover nationalization of every social fight. Barrett is a vote for the downstairs — statutes, states, text. That’s the realistic stake, not the version either campaign is advertising.
Voters who say the Court is everything are half right. It’s the half that outlasts a stimulus package.
This file alone would carry a lot of East Tennessee even if the temperament question were worse than it already is.
Tyler, Texas Correspondent — If you think every contested question should be settled by nine people in robes, then a threat to this Court is the story of the election. If you think a republic votes on things, the judges are the story.
I think we vote.
The stakes are real and boring: who writes the rule, an agency or a house. Four years of this Court is worth more to me than a pleasant November.
Cheyenne, Wyoming Correspondent — The Court is a limit, not a prize.
Trump treated it as a limit and filled it. Biden would treat it as a prize to be recaptured.
High weight. Not the only file. High.
Long Island, New York Correspondent — It’ll weigh more than it should, because we nationalized the bench and then complained that the bench was political.
The realistic stakes are substantial on agencies and on the leftover social questions, and I’m not going to pretend I’ll like the results.
This is the piece that most pulls this table toward Trump, including people at it who can’t stand him, and I understand the pull completely.
I’m voting the other pieces — the pandemic desk, the temperament, a bet that the institutions need a rest. I’ll live with a Court I don’t prefer in exchange for a quieter executive. That’s a trade rather than a principle, and I’d want it described honestly as a trade.
