I don’t know what country’s Republicans you’re talking about, but here in the US, the Pubbies go to laughable extents to seem like they’re not just screwing the middle class for the benefit of large corporations.
They give their bills Orwellian names like the Clear Skies Act (as not-yet-Senator Al Franken said at the time, it clears the skies of birds); they talk about how eliminating capital gains and [del]inheritance[/del] death taxes would encourage innovation and save family farms, they call rich people “job creators,” even when they specialize in cutting or exporting jobs; they justify drastic cuts in food stamps or welfare as ending the harm that government dependence does to one’s self-esteem; and for almost anything else, they find some way to say it’s for the children, or our brave fighting men.
Oh please. We all know what the ethical course of action is. We don’t need you to tell us. My question is why you would expect the Republicans to care about taking it. You keep dodging that, and I don’t know why. So here’s a hint: They don’t care. I’m shocked that I need to tell you that…
Ugh. After Bork was ceremoniously unconfirmed in the most partisan confirmation process to date. But then again, nothing has changed in 30 years. Oh wait, it has!
Kennedy was approved in the first part of January after the same Senate Democrats had rejected two nominees the prior year for the same seat, including one of the smartest jurists of the last century in Robert Bork solely because of his political leanings. The Dems got a Justice who mandated legal abortion nationwide, limited the death penalty, and mandated same sex marriage nationwide.
That doesn’t translate into a Republican Senate simply rolling over and agree to replacing Scalia with whatever far left liberal that Obama will nominate.
Bork sure was an odd case. How did a guy who acted as a Nixon lickspittle right in the middle of Watergate get nominated? And his confirmation fight goes down in history as “partisan”. Tres bizarre.
Spare me the “He better not be too liberal” bullshit. Poppa Bush replaced Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas. Obama could appoint Bernie Sanders to replace Scalia, and it wouldn’t make up for it.
To repeat something I said in the Elections forum thread, what gets me about this whole thing is the bald-faced announcement of what the Republicans’ intent was, especially on the part of those NOT running for President. If they’d just kept quiet and did what they’re expected to do, but not told anyone about their reasoning, what could anyone do if they just said repeatedly, “We need time to thoroughly vet this candidate and make sure that this crucial lifetime appointment is filled with some of the requisite experience and temperament”?
Apparently, someone, or a lot of someones, think announcing their intent so brazenly is good political strategy. We’ll see, I suppose.
For the last time, John, the discussion you’re looking to have here? It ain’t the one I’m interested in. I’ll say no more to you on this particular topic.
You are really holding to this idea. Any member of the Senate Judiciary Committee can jerk around the process to some extent. Chairs of subcommittee all the more.
First, the standing rules of the Senate Judiciary Committee allow any member to delay action for one week on any nomination. Get your colleagues on the committee to do the same in succession and a nominee could be delayed by a few months.
Second, as chair of a subcommittee you can deign to hold hearings on some matter related to the nomination process. This is exactly what was done to delay actions on nominations by President Bush. It’s already been done by Schumer in 2002. He knew how to do it. And the results were that in Bush’s first two years (2001-02) in office only 38% (11 of 29) nominees to the circuit courts received a Judiciary Committee Hearing. That contrasts with 91% (20/22) for the same period of the Clinton administration and 96% (22 of 23) for GHWB, 95% (19/20) for Reagan and 100% (13/13) for Carter.
Third, such Senator can vote his/her single vote against sending a nominee to the full Senate for a vote.
The Speaker of the House cannot do any of those things. But somehow you seem to think the Speaker has more sway or that Schumer was unable to act on his statements?!
Was there any reason for this strategy? It seems to have really limited their options. Could McConnell just not help himself? Hard to make it look non partisan, when you’ve pre announced a partisan maneuver.
And Clarence Thomas was well qualified. But you don’t like the idea of replacing a liberal icon like Marshall with a conservative like Thomas. I understand, and that is my point.
These posts talking about how William Howard Taft nominated a Supreme Court Justice in an election year are misplaced. The Court has in very recent years assumed a super-legislative role and is now paying the price. Taft didn’t have to worry if the judges he was appointing were going to mandate legal abortion or the like. They were considered learned in the law and looked upon as qualified jurists. Today, we don’t look at judges as neutral arbiters of the law, we look at them as votes for our favored positions.
Now that we understand that, there is no problem in my mind with using the process (refusing to vote on an Obama nomination) to get a preferred super-legislator in place.
I consider this whole thing to be pure politics, and nobody should be upset. I don’t take anything anybody is saying st face value. I’m sure that everybody knows that Obama can should and will make a nomination. The job of the opposition is to produce the most formidable possible opposition they can muster. The scarier and more threatening this looks, the greater the chance that Obama will nominate someone palatable to them.
That’s a great question. Unfortunately it’s impossible to answer definitively since the intent of the strategy is to psychologically effect the nomination. However I’d say it worked against Bush when he nominated his women friend but later withdrew the nomination. It didn’t work against his next nomination that got threatened with a filibuster.
It just makes sense though. This puts pressure on Obama to nominate somebody do good and so balanced that the Republicans would look stupid and spiteful to refuse yo consider… Which is exactly what the republicans want.
I would expect the Democrats to be doing some version of this if the tides were turned. In this case the value lies in making as strong a credible threat as you can make, carrying through on it is not the point, obviously. The point of any threat is intimidation do you font have to follow through.
Think about it. Telegraphing the move is actually counterproductive if get mean it. Just as me saying “I’m going to punch you” is a bad idea if I mean it because it gives you time to muster preparations. The value is the threat itself.
