It didn’t seem to work with Kagan or Sotomayor.
Regards,
Shodan
Another consideration is that in the 2018 US Senate elections there will be 23 Dem + 2 Independent seats up for grabs as opposed to only 9 Pub seats. Democratic Senators have to play for two years out. That means dig in their heels on DeVos and decide how to play the SCOTUS nominee based on the public’s reaction to the choice.
The Dems don’t really have many options to “dig in their heels on Devos”. At best, they can cause some temporary delay in her nomination.
Why would they have voted to confirm? Their public stance was that a lame duck POTUS should not be able to make SC appointments. Obama would still have been a lame duck after election day.
I meant electorally – going all out on almost everything (including Merrick Garland) didn’t hurt the Republicans… I don’t see why it would hurt the Democrats, unless Trump becomes extremely popular.
The notion (FWIW) was that there was about to be a referendum on whether Obama’s approach to things, including SC appointees, was what the public wanted, and we should wait until after that referendum took place. If Clinton would have been elected that would been a vindication of Obama’s approach and the Republicans would have folded at that point. No real point of keeping it up (you probably wouldn’t get anything better from Clinton than Garland), and a useful “out” at the least.
The election may have been seen in some quarters as a referendum on Obama’s presidency, but that’s a pretty thin argument when we’d already had a perfectly good referendum in the form of Obama’s own reelection three years earlier. I think it’s rather silly to suggest that the GOP would have played by its own rules on the appointment, particularly given that the “principle” they were standing on shifted from “Garland hates guns!” to “Obama is a lame duck!” over a matter of weeks.
They took a controversial - though utterly unsupportable - stand, and they won. That’s all there is to it. Any justification for their position applies equally to the Democrats’ position on a Trump nominee. But to be clear, there wasn’t any justification then and there isn’t now.
It seems that you’re focusing on your own objection to the Republican tactic and not on what I wrote.
Again, if Clinton won the election there was no point of keeping up that position. So they would have adopted the position that the voters had spoken and approved the guy.
The ideological bent of the court wasn’t in question then, either. Republicans felt they were safe enough giving those to Obama.
As far as I see it, the optimal play seems to be filibustering anyone. If they don’t, the court gets a conservative lean again by default and it’s going to be a long while before that’s up for grabs again.
If they filibuster, either Republicans change the rules to disallow filibuster in which your Democrats position doesn’t worsen: Trump still gets his justice. If they don’t change the rules, Democrats either get a more mainstream justice, or win entirely and prevent a conservative nomination.
I personally, wouldn’t worry about them changing the rules. That dog already went to hunt. They already said that if Democrats say nyet, then they’ll change the rules. Why should the Democrats play under rules that the Republican’s aren’t holding themselves to? If they change the rules, then it prevents Democrats having a “Garland” situation again. If they don’t change the rules, Democrats win.
This seems confused. The Republicans did not filibuster Garland. They held a Senate majority at the time. The filibuster rule would not have impacted Garland.
For some reason, a lot of people seem to be confused about this.
Misread this. Have to rethink my comment.
OK. But your statement was “If they change the rules, then it prevents Democrats having a “Garland” situation again.” That is incorrect. A rules change regarding filibusters would have zero impact on the Democrats having a “Garland” situation again.
Okay, that’s a good point, filibuster rules wouldn’t have affected Garland. I still don’t think that changes the Democrats position on the issue. If Republicans say they won’t respect the filibuster, why should the Democrats limit themselves?
Regarding the Garland scenario, if I were the Democrats, I’d think about adding a line to the rules that say that if appointments are not acted on within a certain time frame, consent is automatically granted. Sure, that’s taking an obstruction tool out of the toolbox, but it removes a obstacle that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
I assume the Republicans would respect the filibuster but not if used to the extreme. For example, if the Democrats reserve it for people who are out of the (conservative) mainstream, they might respect it, but if the Democrats say they will filibuster any and all conservatives, then they obviously won’t. The Democrats might want to preserve the filibuster for the ability to block non-mainstream candidates.
Well at this point the Democrats don’t have the ability to change any rules, since they don’t control the Senate. They can change the filibuster rule by provoking the Republicans to change it, but your suggested rule change is not relevant at this time.
One thing to think about re your suggestion is that it could enable the minority to triumph over the majority. Because the minority in the Senate can delay things considerably (as Democrats are currently doing to Trump nominees). So in a case where the president has support from the minority of the senate, that minority could - under your proposed rules change - possibly block the majority from voting down a presidential nomination, simply by dragging out the process long enough.
I imagine it could be possible to get around this. But in general it’s worth avoiding “fighting the last war” and basing strategy on very specific recent history, but rather taking a broader look at the overall impact.
I would agree if there weren’t significant elements of the Republicans saying that any filibuster will be met with a rule change. They didn’t make an exceptions for if the filibuster is a narrow filibuster of a specific judge or a blanket filibuster of any judge. A filibuster on the part of the Democrats, IMO for any reason, will be met with howls of outrage.
I had meant once they assume control of the Senate again.
I didn’t spell it out, but I was thinking along the lines that actions such as filibusters, committee hearings, etc would be considered as action. With Garland, everyone just sat on their hands; refused to even meet with him. Thus, as long as the process is moving, everything is good. If they just sit and do nothing, it gets approved. Kind of like a pocket veto, but in reverse.
Is that Constitutional?
I agree. But in order to change the rules, they would need 50 votes. They only have 52 seats. So “significant elements” howling with outrage doesn’t mean the filibuster will be eliminated. Democrats filibustering all Republican nominations pretty much does.
Then the Democrats win and either get a more mainstream justice or no other justice at all which keeps a Democratic lean to the court.
What I’m not worried about is voters holding them responsible. I don’t see this flipping any independent votes.
The opposite is true.
If the Democrats filibuster all Republican nominations, then the Republicans will certainly eliminate the filibuster. Once it’s eliminated there’s no check on the Republicans confirming a much more extreme nominee (next opening).
Sorry, I’m confused. Do you mean the Democrats, who have only 48 seats, or do you mean the Republicans need more than 52 seats to change the rules?