Obama has been POTUS since 2008. He still is. No one has replaced him yet. And no, he’s not due to be replaced in what remains of 2016, either.
Because he doesn’t want to shut down he government? Besides, the Court still functions with 8 justices.
With the advent of the standard automatic filibuster, the veto has become less important as a presidential tool. Very little that Obama might want to veto makes it through the Senate to begin with.
The only thing this will accomplish is the demise of the filibuster. The Garland ship has sailed.
Yes, but he’s just given up the entirety of the Supreme Court’s future to the other party, in return for what? A few weeks of bickering, but maybe less bickering than there would have been otherwise? He should grow a spine.
Republicans had no trouble shutting down the government over trivial shit, and “by fiat, the President (if he happens to be a Democrat) doesn’t get to do part of his job anymore” is pretty damn close to shutting down the government in the first place.
When the other team plays hard ball, you can’t bring out the wiffle ball bats and kid gloves. Which is what Obama did. He rolled over. In the face of adversity, for, as far as I can tell, no reason at all. I presume he simply can’t wait until he’s done with this job, and I suspect he had no trouble ignoring some of his responsibilities a year early.
Not “veto Republican bills”. Veto everything. Every single fucking thing. See how long the Republican temper tantrum lasts.
Sometimes you need an authority figure to discipline a group of petulant children. Guess Obama wasn’t up to that task.
It does not seem to me that stalling any nominee who wasn’t nominated by the previous President is a return to normalcy.
The GOP gets to win on this issue because they control the House, Senate, and White House. Elections have consequences, as you astutely note.
So what? The next time a Supreme Court nominee is considered, he isn’t going to be President, and therefore will play no role in the process.
The GOP gambled that they would retain control of the Senate, and could thus push the next President to nominate someone more conservative than Garland. It paid off (apparently).
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by the hope of judicial activism, die (figuratively) when the other party gets to pick a Supreme Court justice who can tell the difference between the Constitution and the opinion page of the Washington Post.
“You won the election - now you won’t do what we want. No fair!!!” Boo hoo for you.
Regards,
Shodan
Garland was a troll nominee. I think Obama thought he could shame the GOP or somehow make a rhetorical point in the national discussion that would bring a flash of insight to the electorate. Silly, if true.
America elected Trump to nominate right wing justices. One of the big Dem talking points to counter the “they’re both the same” rhetoric was the importance of SCOTUS nominees. America heard that and voted enthusiastically for Cheeto Benito. If Dems try to stop him they’ll be hypocrites. Hasn’t stopped them before, but if they want to maintain the “we go high” strategy they might want to reconsider being so blatant.
I have no problem with Senate Democrats putting up a fight. They have that right. I just won’t let them pretend they didn’t start this fight.
By rejecting the eminently qualified Robert Bork, the Democrats started a fight they now pretend they never wanted.
The issues with Garland were that he was the nominee proposed by the duly elected President of the U.S. in a year when the Republicans decided to shit on the Constitution.
The Democrats gave him a fair hearing before deciding to vote against his nomination. Whether or not he was eminently qualified is in the mind of the beholder. I guess he had some qualifications on paper, but if you ever bothered to read any of his book “slouching towards gomorrah” (written subsequently), you certainly would have a hard time arguing that he has any serious critical thinking skills.
DrCube and FiveYearLurker seem to suggest that a Republican-controlled Senate will never again confirm a Democratic president’s nominee. I haven’t seen evidence that supports that belief. This year McConnell chose not to hold hearings on Garland because it was so close to the end of the current President’s term. Obama is a lame-duck President (of the opposing party). He nominated Garland on March 16th, eight months before the election. The (relative) closeness to the next election was a huge factor in the SCOTUS hijinks the Senate played this year, just like it was a factor back in 2007 when Senator Schumer said, “… We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court …”
I don’t see any reason to believe that if there’s a Republican-held Senate and Democrat President in 2021, or 2025, or 2029, that the Republicans would refuse to hold a vote on every SCOTUS nominee that President made.
I’ll admit though, I’m open to being persuaded on this point. If someone has some evidence that suggests that’s the plan forevermore, I’d like to see it.
Great idea. Have Obama shut down the government. What was I thinking…
The American Bar Association rated Bork “well-qualified”. Isn’t that pretty much the standard for whether a nominee is qualified or not? It’s certainly the primary one I heard about when Sotomayor and Kagan were nominees.
Where in the Constitution is the time period specified during which a SCOTUS nominee must be considered? TIA.
Regards,
Shodan
Somehow I doubt the American public is very engaged with the issue of Bork. It might be of academic interest in the “but mom, he started it first” sense, but going forward we have Garland and whomever the new Senate nominates (and we’ll be lucky if the public even remembers Garland a few months from now). Who ever does what is going to have to own that “what” in the next election; without relying on a crutch from 30 some odd years ago.
Main problem with that is that the central point of this OP is that the Democrats should retaliate in kind for the Garland rejection. If you dislike “he started it” then you would reject the OP on that basis alone. I brought in Bork in the context of the premise of the OP.
Beyond that, I disagree that this is an example of “he started it”. The core issue here is that there is a lot of gray area in the constitution as to what the proper roles of the various players is. The nomination is supposed to be subject to the “advice and consent of the Senate”. What does that mean? Does the Senate have the same level of control as the President? Or does the Senate merely confirm that the guy is not completely unqualified and leave it to the President’s prerogative otherwise? Historically the latter has been assumed, but that’s not written anyway, and another approach could be chosen.
So here’s where precedent matters. To the extent that one party uses their Senate powers in a more expansive role, then the other party is going to do the same. It’s not (just) about getting back at the other guys. It’s that once the other side is playing the game with one set of rules, then the other side needs to play with the same rules, or guarantee themselves a losing position. Once you open the Pandora’s Box, you can’t close it again.
The same goes for any number of similar issues, e.g. filibuster rules. (And the same may go for Executive Orders, as noted elsewhere.)
Fuck Bork, who was the FIRST rejected nominee. THAT’S where it started!
The Republicans in the Senate won their elections too. By the rules of the constitution they get to decide if a president’s nominee make it to the Supreme Court.
If the Democrats filibuster any of Trump’s nominations then the Republicans should end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations just like Reid did for other judicial nominations.
When the Supreme Court justices stopped interpreting the constitution and starting making things up, they became just another political branch and they should not be treated as above politics. The Republicans won the election for President and have a majority in the Senate. There should be no backing down.
Out of sheer curiosity, when do you estimate this started?
Obviously it was 1803. 