Not sure the Gorsuch nomination is the one for the Dems to go all out on. Accepting the “stolen” seat argument, it doesn’t really change the status quo ante Scalia breakdown of the court.
Conventional wisdom is that Trump may likely get one or two more chances to make a nomination to the court and those would have a higher likelihood of tipping the ideological balance. Moreover, if such an opening arises due to retirement or death of a justice before this time next year then that nomination battle would be the one fresh in the minds of voters.
I think the Gorsuch goes through on a party line vote and the filibuster stays intact, at least for now.
The republicans need to get the Gorsuch nomination pushed through before they can start impeachment hearings.
Try justifying not holding meetings on a justice because the nominating president has about a year left in his term, but confirm the justice of nominated by president under impeachment hearings, and even the right wing base will see that something is up.
I don’t think that’s true at all. People are still pretty aware that this was merrick garland’s seat.
If I were the Democrats, I would spend the entire hearing process reminding the American public about Merrick Garland. I would ask Gorsuch if he has ever met Merrick garland and what he thinks about him as a jurist. I would ask him what he think is the proper role of advice and consent. I would ask him if a president can nominate a justice to SCOTUS during his last year in office. I would spend the entire fucking time embarrassing the Republicans by bringing it up over and over again.
Where I come from, that’s called letting them make up the rules as the fly. Do we keep letting the Republicans make up new rules that benefit them without pushing back?
Gorsuch just made a fairly significant error. He said that the key precedent on assessing the Muslim Ban would be Youngstown, a case about the scope of executive authority. In fact, Youngstown is inapplicable to claims under the Establishment Clause.
He had to have prepped that answer, so I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
While I think Garland should have had a vote, harping on this now I think would merit no more than a "ha ha’ Nelson Muntz style. I don’t think it would be seen as anything more than sour grapes.
I can’t find the transcript - can you elaborate on this a bit?
I don’t have a transcript either. I was just watching live.
He and Sen. Leahy talked about religious bans and tests for about five minutes, and Gorsuch mentioned some potentially applicable constitutional and statutory provisions (though Gorsuch troublingly omitted the most relevant one, the Establishment Clause). Then Sen. Leahy asked whether the President’s national security judgment on this is even reviewable. And Gorsuch said he thought the relevant precedent “here” was Youngstown.
Maybe Gorsuch meant to address the question of the scope of executive power in the abstract and not in the context of a constitutional challenge to the particular exercise of that power. That would be the most charitable explanation, because it’s pretty clear that Youngstown isn’t applicable to the question a court faces when the President claims that some national security justification means that his decision cannot be challenged under the Establishment Clause. (And, indeed, Youngstown does not speak to reviewability at all, but instead goes to the merits of that review.)
Is it possible that Gorsuch was (implicitly, sub silentio) arguing exactly what you’re deeming a mistake: that the Establishment Clause is somehow inapplicable or irrelevant to the Presidential exercise of war/national security powers, and that the President has plenary and unreviewable power in such matters? Because that seems to be the Trump Administration position re. the controversial immigration executive orders, informally if not formally.
I thought it went to how much power the president could exercise in the absence of congressional authority. If congress (under the same circumstances) couldn’t do it either then how does Youngstown apply?
I mean if Congress couldn’t pass a law excluding muslims based on their religious affiliation as the cases conclude Trump did, then I don’t see how Trump could under any form of Youngstown analysis.
By omitting it, he was arguing it was irrelevant? That strains credulity. If “He and Sen. Leahy talked about religious bans and tests for about five minutes” then it’s unreasonable to think he wouldn’t directly address the Establishment Clause’s irrelevance.
The reason that this strikes me as the most likely explanation is that Gorsuch is going to do what he can to avoid expressing an opinion on anything not in the abstract.
Gorsuch can be confirmed with 50 votes plus the VP tiebreaker. If there’s a filibuster, you’d need 60 votes to stop the filibuster. Unless you vote to change the rules to not allow a filibuster, and the rule change would only take 50 votes plus the VP tiebreaker.
Considering Trump’s administration is currently under FBI investigation for colluding with a foreign nation…
“I believe the overwhelming view of the [del]Republican[/del] Democratic Conference in the Senate is that this nomination should not be filled, this vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck president.”