I have a more basic civics question. How long can a supreme court nomination be held up?
Let’s assume that republicans keep control of the senate and democrats the presidency. Can the senate hold up a supreme court nominee indefinitely? To the point where one by one decades from now the supreme court could theoretically be emptied out by deaths?
Does the president have the power to do some sort of recess or temporary appointment? If the constraint is just politics, I’m not sure how long that will hold with partisanship at current levels, I don’t think conservatives would care.
There are no limitations imposed by the Constitution.
Yes, but it is a limited power. At best, it would be until the next Senate session. The Senate has a lot of power to decide when they are in recess, and could effectively limit the President’s options.
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Assuming the Senate goes majority Democrat with the election, it doesn’t matter who is elected president. Obama conceivably has a two-week window before his term ends for a Democrat-controlled Senate to confirm whatever judgeships might need to be made.
The 2/3 requirement is for treaties. Justices are approved by a simple majority.
I disagree with your other point that a Justice is confirmed after the Senate vote. The President “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint … judges of the Supreme Court.”
First, it is required that the President appoint the justice after the Senate vote for the process to be complete. It is not automatic that the justice takes the bench.
Further, it is debatable whether the appointment of a particular nominee is then a mandatory duty of the President after the advice and consent. Yes, he “shall appoint” just as he “shall nominate,” but the phrase is rather ambiguous as to whether he must appoint the particular nominee even after a positive Senate vote. I mean, the choice of the nominee is discretionary, and the Senate approval is discretionary. Why is the third step mandatory?
Yes. However, the Senate is never in recess. Every three days, I believe, a GOP Senator gavels the session to order, hears a motion to dismiss, the chair grants it, and they go home.
Yanno, I’m getting to think Garland is going to be quick-gavel confirmed in the lame-duck session. O’Connell and Grassley are going to be faced with either confirming him or waiting for Clinton’s leftier choice, which would be dealt with by a Dem-controlled Senate. Garland is at least OK with them overall, and, being after the election, their juvenile need to spite Obama will have dissipated.
You are absolutely correct but it would be an extremely rare circumstance wherein the Justice is confirmed but the President does not appoint them. So I was simplifying it for the viewers.
I think he was assuming that the Dems would take over the Senate, thus removing or lessening the need to appoint someone more acceptable to the GOP. Do you think Obama would have nominated Garland if the Dems were in control of the Senate?
That’s it. It was also to get in the faces of the Senators who had *previously *pointed to Garland as an example of a nominee they would support.
Clinton will not be so constrained. And it doesn’t matter to O’Connell and Grassley if she weren’t; they only fear she would be leftier. Or think their electorates would think so, which they would.
Maybe. I’m positive that Obama thinks Garland would make a good Supreme Court Justice, and his nomination was not just to troll the Republicans. He would have been happy to see them reverse course and confirm Garland.
Obama is not a closet leftist. He’s temperamentally the most conservative president since Eisenhower.
So I believe that Obama and his team looked over their list of potential nominees, and noticed that on that list was a guy who had all sorts of Republican support, and suddenly that guy becomes the nominee. Obama was never going to nominate Noam Chomsky. Maybe Sotomayor was no Scalia, but neither was O’Connor or Rehnquist.
All that, plus Garland is in effect the highest ranking judge in the country who isn’t already on the SC. There was absolutely no way the obstructors could claim he isn’t qualified.
