This is not a debate or retrospective on her record or legacy. It is about the only important question right now: Who replaces her, and when, and on whose appointment?
We are, after all, on the eve of a presidential election. Mr. Majority Leader, you might have heard of something called (for some reason) the “Biden Rule.”
Now it’s The McConnell Rule. You wait until the election for the voters to decide ram through an appointment/confirmation now while you have the chance because you’re a lousy two-faced piece of shit.
Trump arguably has a responsibility to put forward a nomination. A typical timeframe is 4 to 6 weeks after the passing of a Justice. The Senate is under absolutely no obligation to take action.
Arguably if they don’t want to be held out as hypocrites the Senate Republicans will not move forward with confirmation until after the election. If Trump wins and the Republicans maintain control of the Senate then moving ahead with the confirmation during the lame duck session would be appropriate. No point delaying the inevitable and all.
If Trump loses and/or the Democrats regain control of the Senate then the confirmation should not move forward under the precedent set in 2016. But I fully expect that McConnell would move to confirm anyway.
As to the nominee… Trump has his list which he recently added to and so far the nominees have come from his list. There are several women jurists on the list. If Trump wants to nominate a female replacement then Amy Coney Barrett is a likely nominee.
Funny thing – in 2016, the “Biden Rule” – “You can’t fill a SCOTUS vacancy during a presidential election year” – somehow seemed like an actual rule of Senate procedure, if not something in the Constitution itself.
My money would be on Amy Coney Barrett. She’s been the frontrunner for Trump’s next pick ever since the Kavanaugh thing ended. Replacing a woman with a woman would work for the optics too, from the GOP perspective.
That would be like replacing her with David Duke because they’re both white.
Barrett supports the fetal personhood concept. One of the main reasons Kavanaugh was chosen over her.
While unlikely, I’d like to see the whole sorry state of Supreme Court nominations over the last several years lead to the abolition of lifetime appointments. There’s simply too much at stake for both sides when a Supreme Court appointment means that one side will secure a seat for 30-40 years (or more). An 18-year term, with a seat coming up every two years, would lower the stakes for any individual appointment.
I have a better idea: A mandatory retirement age of 70 for ALL federal officials, including judges, Congresscritters . . . and presidents.
McConnell has already announced that any nominee will be considered immediately. But there are some senators who, like Susan Collins, are “concerned” that this means one rule for Democratic presidents and one for Republicans and a couple others, all running for re-election who agree. So maybe McConnell’s best strategy is to wait for the lame duck session after the election. Then Collins and others need no longer be concerned.
Not really – I mean, they didn’t confirm Merrick Garland in a lame-duck session. The same problem remains.
I agree. But this would just lead to younger and younger people being appointed as federal judges. An average appointing age of 38 or 40 might become the new norm as parties try to game the rules.
Now McConnell says this is different from 2016 because different parties controlled the Senate and WH then. Apparently that means the Dems were asking for an unusual “favor.”