If they actually hold hearings and vote “nay” every time, they at least have to have some reason. Sorry if my using bold and underline offends you, BTW.
For hundreds of years, the Senate didn’t sit with their arms crossed, holding their breath until they turned blue like a bunch of toddlers who were told, no, they can’t have cake for dinner.
Excuse me. Garland got passed nearly unilaterally by the Senate for a lower court appointment not that long ago. Orrin Hatch – Orring Freakin’ Hatch – gave this guy a thumbs-up. How much “more to their liking” does a SCOTUS appointee have to be? One who pledges to repeal the 14th and 19th Amendments, so start?
Doesn’t offend me at all, but I think you missed the point I was trying to emphasize equally hard: if they vote ‘nay’ every time, then they aren’t consenting – which you seem to be okay with.
But if you’re okay with them hypothetically not bothering with the “consent” half of “advise and consent”, then why rail against them for not bothering with the “advise” half of “advise and consent”? If, either way, they’re flatly not consenting, then what’s the difference if they also aren’t advising?
I can see reading it as requiring them to do both. I can see reading it as requiring neither. But reading it to require one, and not the other?
In fairness, the question presupposes the Senate Republicans are already pursuing a very extreme tactic (even by the standards of the Senate today). Basically saying “We lied, it wasn’t about waiting for the election, it was just that we won’t accept any nominee less conservative than Scalia.” A question of the form “If Republicans pursue extreme tactic X, what can Clinton do to counter?” naturally fuels suggestions of an extreme response on Clinton’s part.
That said, even if the Republicans pursue such a strategy, there are probably less extreme options available to Clinton than to literally bar the doors of the Senate.
You’re not the first to suggest this. That means it was dismissed as an argument a very long time ago.
IOW, it is not consent to have the Senate simply rubber-stamp the President’s nominees without ever being able to reject them and nobody in government thinks this way. Rejection is advising.
Except that’s exactly what Obama did with Garland.
Orrin Hatch said that he was afraid Obama was going to nominate a radical lefty that the Republicans couldn’t accept, instead of a moderate centrist like Garland, whom the Repubs liked.
So Obama said “Alrighty then, I’m nominating Garland.”
And Mitch McConnell recoiled in horror and said “No. There is no-one that this President can nominate that we will approve in the last year of his term.”
So the Senate is inventing a new constitutional doctrine that 25% of the time, a President is not allowed to nominate a Supreme Court justice. Doesn’t matter who the Prez sends forward, they’ll do nothing.
I don’t follow. Are you saying it was literally dismissed as an argument – such that the Senators claimed they’re not legally obligated to hold hearings, just like they’re not legally obligated to give consent, and judges ruled that, no, you must; unless you’d rather face consequences as doled out by this court?
Because I’m not aware of that happening; AFAICT, they’re categorically refusing to consent, regardless of who the President puts before them; and they’re likewise refusing to hold hearings; and while we dicker over whether they can keep refusing to consent but must hold hearings, I don’t believe anyone has officially dismissed the argument that folks who don’t need to consent also don’t need to advise.
AFAICT, they’re just going to keep on keeping on, because no one with authority has told them they need to start advising even if they keep refusing to consent.
But is it consenting?
People are saying they have to Advise And Consent; right now they’re doing neither; if they change course, and start forever Advising but never Consenting, then – what?
Merrick Garland is a justice to their liking but I’m sure you know that. That you pretend otherwise shows me all I need to know about your politics. Further debate with you would be a waste of my time.
I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. It is the GOP that insists on forcing her hand, and so they have to eat crow. Clinton should do this, and you should accept and cheer her for doing it, because this fake shit of feigning outrage at an election year appointment is objectively, factually wrong and unprecedented. You should do anything you can to avoid the situation now. I won’t even go into McConnell’s reasoning, so full of shit is he with his slimy, slippery excuses that nobody believes him even if they support him. You should vote for Clinton and, if the seat is still unfilled, loudly cheer her as she forces someone super liberal on the GOP as punishment.
The Constitution specifically says that the Senate sets their own rules, so it’s not up to a President or a Court to determine when they are in recess. It’s up to the Senate.
I remain committed to supporting Clinton because Trump is Trump, but of all the arguments I have read, yours has come the closest to convincing me not to do that.
Perhaps someone would care to discuss what would happen if the senate simply turns down all her appointments. No secretary of state, no attorney general, no secretary of defense. Then what?
Needless to say and in contrast to some of the opinions above, they are not required to give any reason whatever for their actions.
And you think that the way to solve unprecedented GOP obstruction is passivity? Clinton and the Dems make some noise about it every few months for 2 years, hoping that the midterms drop enough Senators to the D side so we can finally have our Constitutionally allowed nominee a vote? Or do you have a magical way to convince a recalcitrant GOP Senate to actually do their fucking jobs?
True to an extent. The Senate gets to set its own rules. But the concept of “recess” is not simply an internal matter for the Senate in this situation, because it affects one of the constitutional powers of the Executive branch. It is therefore appropriate for the Court to consider the meaning of “recess” to resolve a dispute between the other two branches.
(And the more I type “recess” the more I think of the Senate as children on a playground. )
I just don’t see such a change leading to any substantial difference.
They could simply vote no on every candidate, and we’d be right back where we are.
Now, maybe they’d face more political pressure for doing so, but I’m not convinced that’s the case. The outcome is the same, which is that the President doesn’t get to appoint any justices, and, critically, this is an outcome that their supporters want.
This goes to the heart of the matter, which is that we have a system which allows the President and the Senate (or Congress generally) to be separately elected in opposition to each other, each claiming a plausible mandate and each having separate democratic legitimacy, and also requires them to cooperate to accomplish anything. Some systems don’t have this particular flaw, but they have other flaws (like one political party getting 50% of the vote +1 person and then suddenly you have an established church), so it’s basically inherent in any governmental system that you can’t have everything, and you can’t have anything unless people are participating in good faith.
This is a genuine crisis, and in the worst scenario you could have it continue until you have some sort of complete breakdown in civil institutions and the Constitutional order. I hope that people will see reason before that point.
I wish that the rule for appointments was that Congress had to act to deny the appointment, not approve it. If they did nothing (after some period of time), then the appointment was approved by default. It would help reduce these kind of games. At least they’d have to go on record saying they deny the appointment.
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