Do you actually believe that simply asserting something makes it become true?
Why should I or anyone else care what you’d “have to say?”
The point of this entire discussion is: I reject your judgement as it applies to selecting the correct way to view the non-vote approach. In what possible way do you imagine that asserting it even more firmly will sway me?
Was Bork given a hearing? Yes or No?
Was Garland given a hearing? Yes or No?
Right, and just about everyone can tell quite clearly how bizarre and unreasonable this argumentation is.
How would you define this phrase in numerical or percentage terms?
Bork: Yes
Garland: No
So what? What do you imagine those answers demonstrate?
Same playbook.
So tell me how many wise philosophers agree with you, and how many with me. How shall we total up the weight of their opinions and put it into political effect, hmmmm?
To dare to throw the Founding Fathers into the mix, they modeled the whole Advise and Consent process on the system in place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And that process routinely refused to hold a vote on the governor’s nominees that the Privy Council chose to reject.
So in as much as the Founding Fathers were copying the MBC, they would likely understand the current Senate’s non-vote on Garland and think it quite reasonable.
The fact that Garland was rejected before his name was even announced means that Republicans changed the game; Republicans declared that Democratic presidents don’t get to nominate Supreme Court justices. Democrats have never done anything remotely similar if Bork is all they have to use as an example.
But this thread is about what to do moving forward. And, as I’ve stated, while I think what Republicans did to Garland is unprecedented and abhorrent, it’s obvious that Democrats have to do the same thing lest only Republican nominees get considered.
As I said in the OP, I would hope that this could be returned to normalcy, and I think righting the wrong that was done to Garland, and asking Democrats not to do the same thing in the future would be a good step. But, I’m not naive enough to think this is going to happen.
Do you realize you’re not in the same position next year as the Republican Senators were this year? Your party will be the MINORITY party in the Senate. You can’t “do the same thing” to Trump’s nominee. You can’t deny him or her a hearing. You don’t have the votes.
That the Senate Democrats of 1987 were a more mature and responsible bunch than the Senate Republicans of 2016.
Maybe at best the Senate Republicans of 2016 could be compared to the Massachusetts Legislature Democrats of 2004, in showing a willingness to change the rules for blatant partisan advantage, though admittedly the Senate Republicans didn’t even do that minor formality - they just pretended to care about the will of the American people at first, and then when it looked liked Clinton was going to win, basically told the American people to go fuck themselves. Sadly, it worked, because a good-sized fraction of the American people seem to enjoy and invite getting fucked, or they couldn’t be bothered to care either way.
Anyhoo, if the Senate Democrats of 2017-18 are presented with nominees they find unacceptable, they should do their best to reject such nominations. They may not succeed, but that’s the pendulum of politics.
If you want the Democrats to do the same thing, then let Trump get 2 nominees approved, and if he nominates someone in the year of the next election, then block it. What you are proposing is that the Democrats up the game even further.
I’m proposing that the Democrats respond with the only counter to the broken strategy. Drawing a clear line in the sand and saying, “This is not okay, we’re not going to accept this result”.
Okay, but first Trumpcare has to get passed.
The Democrats are in the minority. Draw whatever lines you want - the GOP will respond by eliminating the filibuster, stomp on the lines, kick sand in your face, and put a conservative (God willing) on the Supreme Court.
Saying “we’re not going to accept this result” is like the folks saying “not my President”. The Democrats can protest all they want - Trump is going to be inaugurated next January 20. The Democrats can say they won’t hold hearings until Garland is put on the Supreme Court. He isn’t going to be on the Supreme Court.
It’s not going to happen.
When the Democrats had a majority in the Senate and a Democrat in the White House, they got to put a liberal on the Court. When the Republicans have a majority in the Senate and a Republican (sort of) in the White House, they get to put a conservative on the Court. That’s how the system operates. Saying “no fair - they didn’t hold hearings, so we aren’t going to hold hearings” doesn’t matter, because you can’t make it stick.
The Dems can yell and scream and kick their heels and hold their breath until they turn blue - if the GOP can maintain party discipline with 51 Senators, there will be a conservative on the Supreme Court.
Not Garland.
Regards,
Shodan
Abhorrent is a matter of opinion. Unprecedented is an issue of fact.
Refusing to even hold a vote on a nominee is not unprecedented.
Refusing to even hold a vote on a judicial nominee is not unprecedented.
Refusing to even hold a vote on a SCOTUS nominee is not unprecedented.
Refusing to even hold a vote on a SCOTUS nominee even before the nominee’s name is announced is not unprecedented.
As the Senate’s website notes, “nearly a quarter of all Supreme Court nominations have failed to be confirmed, their nominations rejected, withdrawn or declined.”
I guess the idea of the parties doing what they should do, rather than what they can do, is naive.
That’s the lesson Harry Reid taught Republicans.
Are you willing to shut up and accept my notion of “what the parties should do?”
No?
Then why in the world would you possibly imagine I am willing to accept yours?
The strain that runs consistently through this thread, and tens of thousands of its cousins here on the SDMB, is the seldom-spoken assumption that, ultimately, liberal polices are CORRECT. They are moral, they are right, they help people. And, conversely, conservative policies are WRONG. They are immoral, they are regressive, they hurt the most vulnerable among us.
This conviction infects all sorts of weighing and analysis. It means that when Democrats violate a norm of politics they are generally seen as doing so for good reasons, right reasons, moral reasons. Obviously it’s possible for Democrats to do something so egregious that even the SDMB will flinch, but as a starting point, the party enjoys this presumption.
And, naturally, the reverse is true. When Republicans violate a norm, they are doing so to advance goals that are poor reasons, wrong reasons, immoral or outright evil reasons.
The filibuster has been a good metric for this feeling. Look back at the commentary directed at the filibuster here over the past 17 years. Notice that when minority party Democrats used it, we were treated to phrases like “tyranny of the majority,” and “ensuring that half the country is heard.” When minority party Republicans used it, it was “obstruction,” and (against Obama-driven policies) even racist in origin.
Here is the truth you should internalize: there is legitimate good-faith disagreement about the proper role and function of government. We each have ideas about how best to govern.
Got that?
OK, here’s the next big hurdle: neither party will dominate forever. There is a pendulum, and it swings. Names may change. Not too many folks today running on the Federalist ticket, after all. But ultimately, this nation will continue to have a two party system and the public will continue to award control of the elected offices that govern us to each party in alternating cycles.
Got that one?
Great!
Now here’s the real mountain: in order for this system to function, the rules must be the same for both parties. You cannot credibly demand that the filibuster be available only when your party is in the minority, or that only your president is entitled to executive deference on nominees. The only way this system works is if we agree on the rules ahead of time, when it’s unclear which party might be advantaged by them, and then stick to those rules in good faith even when they are disadvantageous to you.
Now, of course this doesn’t forbid changing the rules. But this should be done prospectively. You cannot argue for a change after the fact. For example, if Trump had won the popular vote but Clinton had won the electoral college, I can only imagine his outraged tweets talking about the popular will being thwarted. Now, of course, he is a fan of the electoral college. This is, in my opinion, fundamentally dishonest. If you argue the EC should be changed, that’s certainly a fair position to take. But it’s an argument for 2020’s election.
All of which brings us back here.
In the modern era, I contend that it was Democrats who threw the first substantive “change punch,” by actively campaigning against Bork’s confirmation and defeating it. This broke the norm; this led to Republicans doing worse violence to the process, which led to Democrats doing even worse, ultimately removing the filibuster possibility for non-Supreme Court appointees. And now it will likely lead to Republicans pulling the pin on that barrier.
I’ll say again that if I were a senator, I would not only have voted to allow hearings for Garland but voted to confirm him, even though he’s not my cuppa tea, judicially speaking, because I believe my duty as a senator is to confirm a qualified nominee that the President presents, and not play bullshit games with the word “nominee.”
But if a fellow senator were to say to me, “Hey, Bricker, why? You know the Democrats won’t return the favor, right?”
Truth is, I’d have no satisfactory response. Because if you’re being honest, you know it’s true. The first Trump nominee would be a conservative judge, and the left wing would weigh the here-and-now losses of breaching the deal against the long-term damage done by such evil, wrong, immoral decisions as a conservative justice might issue in the next thirty years…and they’d vote him down.
And we’d be right back where we are.
But that whole mindset rests on the conviction that the other side shouldn’t do that, because their objection is to a moderate, centrist judge who no reasonable person could reject!
Of course. Because, unspoken, that’s the weighing.
Right?
What specifically is the difference between holding hearings and rejecting everybody the President nominates until his term runs out, and announcing ahead of time that you are going to reject everybody the President nominates until his term runs out? Specifically.
Regards,
Shodan