Not only would there be nothing to prevent the dems from taking it down themselves, but it’s 100% certain that they would do so. They would have to be complete morons to limit themselves if the Republicans weren’t limiting themselves.
Gorsuch is in no way illegitimate. Supreme Court nominees become Supreme Court justices only with…sing along if you know the words…advice and consent of the Senate. Garland did not get that consent. And, no, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t get a hearing or a vote. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say what process the Senate must use to give or withhold consent. The Senate gets to make its own rules; and the rules in place at the time as approved by a majority of its members were followed. You don’t like it? Either get better candidates, or convince more people to vote for the ones you have.
Strategically, the “I’m taking my ball and going home” method doesn’t really work for Democrats. It is contrary to their very philosophy. Democrats are the party that claims government is a good and effective force. So refusing to participate in the process goes against their own instincts and beliefs. Republicans can get away with it because they can say they are following their own beliefs - that government should do less - and sell that to their voters. Dems don’t really have that option.
Democrats have the option of using delaying tactics within the rules (until they’re changed), and filibustering. Hopefully, they will use those options. And good riddance to the filibuster, if it indeed gets nuked.
Don’t discount what PCP said. Near the end for Thurgood Marshall he was no longer up to being a SC Justice but he hung on and relied increasingly on his clerks to write his opinions for him.
It’s possible… but just as I imagine that most conservatives would hope that (for example) Thomas would hang on, with the aid of his clerks, through the end of a Democrat’s term, I imagine most liberals would hope that RBG, were she declining, would somehow hang on as well.
They wouldn’t, which is why I think it’s pointless for the Democrats to hold off on filibustering Gorsuch.
Because, as I said, our government is predicated on the idea that our government will work together. That means compromise and deal making are part of the bargain.
One side ramming its agenda through is not Democracy, it’s Tyranny.
Bi-partisanship is the foundation of our entire government.
The fact that we’re debating whether the Democrats should display bi-partisanship here is proof that it’s not the Democrats who have abandoned bi-partisanship.
The fact that we have no such debate about whether the Republicans should or would display bi-partisanship is proof of who, exactly, is sowing the seeds of disaster, here.
Unless Republicans are will to be partners in good faith, it’s useless for the Democrats to try and work with them. That’s why good faith is the question here.
What big price are they going to pay? The republicans aren’t paying anything; they’re winning. They’re going to shove their nominees up democrats asses and make them like it. They won’t pay a price until the country collapses economically and until the white folk who voted them into power vote them out.
What happens when two sides fundamentally disagree on “what’s best for the country” consists of? Our politics are divided because the country is ideologically and culturally divided. The nation hasn’t been this polarized on what should be considered fundamentally right and wrong since the Antebellum period. To name just one example, abortion: half the country considers it part of a woman’s reproductive freedom, and the other half considers it prenatal infanticide. There’s no way to bridge that gap; one side has to win and the other has to lose.
You must not have been around in the 60s. And your example— when has the country NOT been split about 50/50 on that? It’s not that the country is more divided, it’s that we have so many media outlets telling us about it.
I said it a couple of days ago and I’ll say it again: get over the SCOTUS appointment – all the democrats had to do to get that nomination was to beat a horribly flawed candidate, the equivalent of Tiger Woods needing a 3 meter putt to to win the Masters or Morten Anderson kicking an extra point to win the Super Bowl. It didn’t happen.
They still have a golden opportunity to score a victory by taking down Betsy DeVos, which might seem like a symbolic victory, but it’s an important one. Take the easy points. Save the two-point conversion for later in the game. If they dig in and fight this appointment, who actually seems like another John Roberts at worst, then they’re wasting their political ammo.
They have no ammo, except symbolically, and the chance to kill the filibuster. Waiting won’t change anything, except to demoralize liberals who are currently excited about opposing Trump. Better to push hard from the get go, both to keep their base excited and to force Mitch to make big changes to Senate rules.
Talk, talk, talk gives people a warm, fuzzy feeling. But it still comes down to votes. Does the (insert political party name here) have enough votes to get what they want?
Currently, if the Democrat Party wants to have any meaningful participation in the current selection process, they need to overcome the will of the voters that gave the Republican Party a majority in both houses of the U.S. Congress.
Currently, the best that the Democrat Party can do is slow down the selection process. Are the Democrats willing to make any deals with elected Republicans that will cause those elected Republicans to switch their vote to side with the Democrats? Or should elected Democrats stand on the sidelines and howl about how ineffective they are?
No, better to wait until the liberal base has more support than just angry Elizabeth Warren pussy hatters. Otherwise, they invite the nuke option needlessly. Right now, yes, the Democrats have no ammo – accept that fact and pick fights wisely. But the more that Trump screws up – and he will – it would be nice to have a filibuster at a time when not only liberals but more moderate voters abandon Trump and the GOP. I’m done worrying about the angry left-wing base, many of whom basically abandoned the democratic party in November and allowed Trump to happen in the first place.
