Obama couldn’t place a member because he didn’t have the votes in the senate. It really is that simple.
How do you know that?
Was there a vote?
I know that because he didn’t get a placement, maybe I should change votes to power over the Senate Floor.
But you said that he didn’t get a placement because he didn’t have the votes in the senate.
There was no vote in the senate.
ETA: Your edit is slightly more true. But, the person that had the power over the Senate floor said that it was wrong for a President to get a vote on their nominee in an election year.
Had there actually been a floor vote, I do think that Garland would have been confirmed. Which is why McConnel refused to hold one.
In a way, this works out. Had McConnel not thumbed his nose at his duties and played games, we would have gotten Garland on the court, a very moderate justice, and then we’d have no reason to cry foul as McConnel scraps his own rule to push through a right wing partisan hack.
By delegitimizing the process, McConnel has justified the Democrats packing the court. If he had followed norms, then we’d be stuck back at a 5-4 conservative majority, and no real reason to change that.
True, which is why I am amending my statement. My point is that the power wasn’t there to force a vote, in my mind, complaining about a stolen seat when you don’t hold the power to place them is misguided and it excuses those who lacked said power.
Be better/more inclusive, get more Senate seats and voila!
Yeah his reasoning was completely made up and bullshit, but as Sam Stone said earlier, that is politics.
It also doesn’t change the framework that you know you need in order to get your way. Step 1, take the Senate.
And that is the step that we will be taking this fall.
And any complaints about process, as the Democrats pack the court, from the right will just be the wailings of ineffective hypocrites.
Complaints about the process only matters if you can turn the general feelings about it to the populace to garner more votes the next time out.
You haven’t heard me complain about packing the court but I think if you go about it that way, you will definitely hear complaining from the Democrats when it happens against them. (and Octopus is right, it WILL happen against them at some point)
Should we place a gentleman’s bet?
As has been demonstrated and explained, 50% of the senate represents 18% of the population, and 50% represents 82%.
Your definition of inclusive is to pander to that 18% at the expense of the 82%.
Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I am simply showing you the water, I can’t make you drink.
There is 1 way to force a vote to confirm, take the Senate. It isn’t like pandering is off the table, unless you are saying the Democrats don’t.
It also isn’t a zero sum game, unless you think that by helping the 18% you couldn’t ALSO help the 82% (I’m just going with your numbers) States have equal representation, like it or not.
In case anyone was wondering why, exactly, Trump wants to get another justice onto the SCOTUS as quickly as possible, he’s once again saying the quiet part out loud:
“We need nine justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending, it’s a scam, it’s a hoax. Everybody knows that. And the Democrats know it better than anybody else.”
If the Democrats allow the Republicans to obstruct them in cleaning up the mess that the Republicans have made, then the general feelings of the populace will be that the Democrats don’t deserve power. Republicans may just wreck things when they are in charge, but at least they get things done.
It may turn out that the Republicans at some point in the future have an oportunity to pack the court themselves. So? It’s not like they wouldn’t if they had the chance and found themselves in a SCOTUS minority.
Are you telling me that if Biden wins, and somehow over the next 4-8 years that the court turns to a 5-4 or even 6-3 Liberal majority, and the Republicans have a chance to pack the court to reverse that, they would not do so unless the Democrats had done it first?
I disagree. The Republicans have broken every norm already, and so would have no problem doing so if it would be in their favor. You are warning that if we do this thing, then the Republicans will do it in return, but not acknowledging that the Republicans would do it anyway.
The only reason that they wouldn’t is if they didn’t need to, and the only reason that they wouldn’t need to is if we didn’t change the composition of the court.
So long term, makes no difference whatsoever in what the Republicans will do. Short term, keeps a partisan court from undoing all the progress made over the last 50 years, as well as blocking any attempts at passing progressive legislation.
Keep in mind, the Republicans have to have both the house and senate while having the presidency. The Senate is an uphill battle for Democrats, as it represents lots of land and not that many people. But the house actually represents the people, and will be a harder take for the Republicans.
BTW, no, I will not make a bet, as that is explicitly against board rules. You are welcome to go to any of the online betting sites if you feel the need to do so.
Depending on the circumstances, Biden should be prepared to state on the record that his campaign not only disagrees with the Supreme Court but that they refuse to concede the race based on any ruling that clearly does not allow states to decide their own elections. I wouldn’t say that out in public right now, because people might assume it’s a sour grapes political tactic, but that’s a discussion the top level campaign team members need to have in private for sure.
What circumstances? The states generally have a lot of power to manage their own elections, not the federal government. Let’s say that the state is following its own election rules in counting mail-in ballots, recounts, and what not, but the Trump administration, along with Bill Barr’s Department of Justice, tries to assert the power to stop mail-in voting counting on election night, in contravention to a state’s own lawful processes. I think that if the Court takes up that case - the moment that a 5-4 or 6-3 conservative court decides to take that on - Biden tells the Court we will not accept any outcome that deviates from the laws on the books. Period. They can issue their ruling, and they can live with their legacy of completely discrediting the Court in the eyes of a majority of voters. And they will take responsibility for the madness that follows.
Nah, you’re showing me an overflowing septic tank, and telling me it’s water.
Like I said, we have a good chance to take the Senate this year. Republicans have really screwed the pooch, and the lies that are usually told are not holding up. People are being forced to see the reality of the Republican’s failure at governance.
And you are right that it isn’t a zero sum game. Most of what helps the 82% also helps the 18%. That’s what happens when you craft your policies to work for the majority of people. However, if you craft your policies to only work for the minority of people, then you can much more easily ignore the needs of the majority while pandering to the minority.
Perhaps its a problem with my comprehension. Can you tell me what you think I missed? because i think people frequently cite opinions as if it were fact.
I think there is a difference between criticizing the far left and criticizing a straw man. I was not accusing you of being a member of the far left.
That sort of constitutional hardball is what leads to the partisan arms race (to the bottom).
Then they might lose the votes of the fringe left. The middle is held hostage on the left like it is on the right. The parties seem to have stopped fighting for the middle and focused on enthusiasm and turnout at the fringes. Pandering to white supremacists seems to have worked for trump. Republicans have sort of been coyly flirting with the white supremacists for my entire life but they won an election by fully embracing them and the democrats seem to have learned the wrong lesson and are now fully embracing the far left.
It depends on whether there is a political price for packing the court. McConnell’s actions make it unlikely that anyone to the left of John McCain will have a big problem with it.
Yes, that is the deal that the states struck and every state since then has voluntarily agreed to that bargain. The fact that this gives the republicans a 7% advantage in the senate only means that the republicans are able to appeal to 7% more states than democrats.
If you don’t like it, then try and get those other 41 states to agree to cede power to the 9 states with the highest populations by getting rid of the senate… ooorrrrrr you can grant statehood to the us territories and Washington DC. All you need are the house, the senate and the white house. If you really wanted to rub their nose in it, balkanize california into half a dozen states (but make sure to effectively nullify the conservative votes in places like orange county and central california with strategic drawing of state lines, break off brooklyn into a separate state, queens into a state, long island into a state, the bronx, each of these subdivisions are larger than the 13 smallest states. You can basically ensure a permanent majority in the senate by making enough liberals states out of the ingredients you already have in your cupboard. But at some point it’s like packing the court with a dozen new justices. You probably only need the territiories, the district and nocal/socal.
They sort of have to take it on and in bush v gore they seemed to defer the right to count votes to the states.
That may be true. I’m not saying Biden should refuse to concede under any circumstances and there could be legitimate reasons for the court to hear a contested result.
However, I’m saying that if the Court ends up deciding whether to interfere in state elections just because the conservatives have control of the court now (ha! ha!), then Biden should be prepared to refuse conceding an election and the conservatives on the court need to know that any decision to interfere in an election from the bench would have potentially catastrophic consequences for the Republic - and any blood from the politically wounded Republic would be on their hands.
I’m sure Biden’s institutionalist instincts would tell him to concede and not cause chaos for the good of the country and all that, the same way Gore’s told him to fold, I’m sure, but this would be going too far, and this would be a rare scenario in which defying those instincts might serve us all better.
The trouble is the 18% are mostly delusional (not all, certainly, but enough to win elections) thanks to RW media. Dem policies are already geared to help those people. What should Dems do to outreach to them, start demonizing brown people and forcing women to have unwanted babies?
This is the second time in this thread you’ve responded to someone as if they personally are dictating all of the nationwide campaign messaging of the entire Democratic party.
If you use personally challenging language like this, then don’t carp about getting a personalized response as you did upthread. It’s just cheap and lame, and it merits nothing but a likewise cheap and lame response.
It doesn’t matter what you think I am or amn’t. Your characterization of the far left is a hilariously mistaken strawman.
It doesn’t seem like you intend to bring anything substantial to this picnic, so I’ll be taking my potato salad and leaving now.