How about, “One could come to an incorrect conclusion by only looking at that part of the quote?” 
Schumer was effectively in the Senate majority in 2007 when he said his discussed comments. There were 49 Democrats to 49 Republicans, but the 2 Independents sided with the Democrats. As such Schumer was in the majority for committee assignments and he sat with the majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There goes *that *excuse.
You keep saying he was on the Judiciary Committee. So what? There were 19 members of the committee at that time. So long as the chairman scheduled a vote, Republicans would just need to peel of four out of 11 Dems on the committee, and the nomination would be reported. That’s right: Schumer would have had to convince seven out of 11 Dems to vote with him – that’s not a whole lot of power.
Even if a nominee isn’t favorably voted out of committee, the committee still generally sends the nomination to the full Senate. Judge Bork was rejected by the Judiciary Committee by a 9-5 vote, and that didn’t kill his nomination – it was the full Senate that did.
Schumer’s role on the Judiciary Committee is much less consequential that you say it is.
Iggy was correcting your statement that Schumer was not on the judiciary. He was, in fact, not only on the judiciary committee, but was the chairman of the committee.
I think that’s an important correction to make.
He was, as noted, chairman.
He said something. Did he believe it, or not?
I was in error that the statement was made in 2007, when the Dems were in the majority, as opposed to my assumption that the statement was made in 2005 when the Dems were in the minority and when Roberts and Alito were voted on. But I would never have claimed he wasn’t on the Judiciary Committee – where did I claim otherwise?
Sure, that would be an important correction. If Patrick Leahy wasn’t actually the Chairman from 2007 to 2015. Schumer has never been Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and has never had authority to call, or not call, for a vote in committee.
This is a bit silly. You quoted a phrase that is completely meaningless by itself. His full quote is correctly paraphrased as I suggested. He’s saying he’ll vote on the candidates and vote no unless they’re different from Bush’s previous ones.
That’s entirely within his constitutional duty: he’s allowed to determine whether candidates are qualified, and if he thinks they’re too ideologically driven, that’s his judgement. McConnell could do the same thing, and it’d be a fair argument.
What’s not a fair argument is making up a transparently ridiculous lie about some Senatorial tradition that mustn’t be violated, in order to obscure the true discussion. And what’s not okay is to remove all wiggle room: listening to a candidate and rejecting them based on their ideology is fundamentally different from making up a reason not to listen to them at all.
Not quite.
In 2007 Schumer (D-NY) was on the Senate Judiciary Committee but was not the chairman of that committee. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was the committee chairman. I’ll link again to the makeup of that committee.
The committee as a whole constituted 19 members – 10 Democrats and 9 Republicans.
But the real nuts and bolts interesting stuff was at the subcommittee level. And Schumer was the chair of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts (composed of 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans) during the 110th Congress.
Everyone got that now?
Then a Senator, in conformance with rules of the full committee, could proceed to sandbag a nomination. Delay it, tie it up in some subcommittee matter, and refuse to poll in back to the full committee. The options are limited by imagination.
“Imagination” is a key point here: there was no actual vacancy in question.
The other key point is that, if Schumer had followed through in the way you and Bone seem to think he was suggesting, and blatantly refused to consider a candidate simply because Bush was proposing him, he would have been in violation of his constitutional duty. True, there’s no recourse except the ballot box for a senator in such violation; but it’d be profoundly obnoxious and a serious dereliction of duty for him to have done so.
THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM HIS DECIDING NOT TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF A STRONG CONSERVATIVE JUDGE.
Again: if McConnell looks at an ACTUAL judicial appointment and says, “Nope, too liberal,” that’s part of how the system works.
If McConnell says, “Obama keeps nominating librul activists, I’m probably going to vote against any future nominees that look like that,” that’s a bit dirty politics and somewhat obnoxious, but it’s still how the system is set up.
But McConnell isn’t saying that. He’s saying, “Obama lost his right to nominate any more SC justices, so if he does so, I’m going to completely ignore his nominees.” That’s what comprises exceptional obstructionism.
Why is that obstrctivism? Obama doesn’t need McConnel’s permission to nominate justices. His claim has no legal or procedural merit. It’s, don’t be shocked, pure politics.
That’s why I had the full quote, and the link in post #226.
Yes, I recognized this in post #233. But there’s not much of a meaningful difference in reality. That’s the point of the 2nd paragraph in that post. Yes, holding a hearing vs. not is different, but not necessarily meaningfully so if the result is a foregone conclusion. It’s still saying no, just for reason A and not reason B.
So we’re on the same page here, Obama
McConnell is saying he’s going to withhold that advice. I’m not sure what you mean by “his claim.” Whose claim, and which claim?
At least there are some Republicans willing to be honest and acknowledge that if a Republican President was in office and a Liberal Justice suddenly passed away with said Republican President in his last year and a “lame Duck,” Republicans Wouldn’t Wait To Replace Scalia If We Held The White House.
We’re going back and forth here. You compared my paraphrase to a snippet. It’s not a meaningful comparison. If you want to compare my paraphrase to the actual quote, please explain what’s wrong with my paraphrase, instead of just claiming victory because your snippet of a quote is his actual words. I wasn’t paraphrasing the snippet, I was paraphrasing the whole thing.
Reason A–that we think the candidate is unqualified–is a fair reason. Reason B–that we think the president shouldn’t be able to nominate–is not a fair reason.
I can drop this line. There is no victory being claimed in any way by me. I thought you were saying I was misrepresenting the speech which was odd because I quoted the whole thing.
Who decides what’s fair? I’m not saying one is fair and the other isn’t - my point is that both are politics. There are no standards that must be used to evaluate.
Not exactly in this case. The Senate operates to a certain extent on tradition and precedent. What the Republicans are proposing is a new president. But in the end you are right and that it’s up to the people to decide.
Nice typo.
I love that every time this happens it is like it is happening for the first time. Everybody just switches arguments. Now the Republicans will be arguing that advise and consent means they get to choose
Huh? When Schumer made that speech in 2007, didn’t the Democrats (narrowly) control the Senate? I believe Schumer even held a leadership position at the time.