Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away

I just don’t see any down side to the Republicans pushing through their nominee in the lame duck period. Regardless of the election outcome they will want a Justice confirmed before the new Senate is seated.

Graham already changed his mind and said so when RBG had a health scare earlier in the year.

Yeah. We’ll cross that bridge. After Kavanaugh, the rules have changed as far as I’m concerned. We’ll see what the market will bear if that ever happens.

Democrats warn GOP: Don’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2020 or we’ll retaliate

He felt very strongly that the American people should decide this sort of thing until someone said something mean about Justice Kegstand. Now he thinks the American people can go fuck themselves.

GOP principles at their finest.

Lindsey Graham is the most morally vacant shell of a politician and a human being I have ever witnessed. He’s completely devoid of principles. And I don’t mean that he’s immoral – e.g. people may say that Mitch McConnell lacks principles, but they’re wrong. McConnell has very strong principles – might makes right, win at all costs. Even Trump has principles – i.e. to serve himself in all things.

But Graham literally has no principles, no compass, no fixed beliefs to guide him. Yet he constantly feels the need to assert how principled he is and show how he’s taking principled stands. And then the winds shift, and he directly contradicts the stand he just took with a new position that he’s just as convinced is based on his immutable principles.

I’d almost say it’s fascinating, but really he’s too small for that word. Mildly interesting, maybe.

“I’m not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of space there. I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” - Lindsey Graham 2-17-2016

“I’m concerned by the media’s attempt to label Trump as a kook or not fit to be President.” - Lindsey Graham 11-30-2017

Trump is incapable of that sort of delayed gratification. Here is a possible, if unlikely scenario, from the Votemaster:

[quote]

Meanwhile, keep in mind that in the Senate, precedents are binding. It has always been this way because the very first senators and representatives operated in the tradition of the English parliament and of English common law. This fact is what makes the filibuster-killing “nuclear option” possible; if the 60-vote filibuster is overturned once on a point of order (which requires just 51 votes), then a new precedent is established and it’s overturned forever.

Taking these things together, the Democrats could argue that when he applied the McConnell Rule to Merrick Garland, the Majority Leader established a precedent that is just as binding as an actual Senate rule. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough might (or might not) be asked to weigh in, but she would likely agree. Either way, Senate Democrats could file a lawsuit in federal court arguing that by disregarding the McConnell Rule, McConnell is guilty of an abuse of his discretionary authority. It’s plausible that the Democrats might even prevail on the merits. More importantly, however, as we have learned many times in the past four years (see taxes, Donald Trump’s; subpoenas, congressional), it generally takes a while for the various levels of the Court system to make their rulings. Toss in the holiday season, when the courts are closed, and it’s entirely possible that such a lawsuit could run out the clock on Donald Trump’s term if he is not reelected.[/quote]

And what happens if they just go ahead and have a vote and seat a new justice in the meantime?

Republicans are now saying trusting them was a mistake

Susan Collins has released a statement.

In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected on November 3rd.

Guess who just got a law degree from Georgetown? Tiffany Trump. She probably took the bar exam too. She seems smart because she stayed away from Dad, grew up in California with Marla Maples. There is a funny video where he tries to kiss her cheek and she avoids him. He may wait a few years before he puts her on the court.

I got an email from Bernie today with quotes from various (Republican) senators on the concept of replacing a justice at this point in a presidency. FYI:

Senator Lindsey Graham

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”

Senator Ted Cruz

“It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

Senator Cory Gardner

“I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”

Senator Marco Rubio

“I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term — I would say that if it was a Republican president .”

Senator Rob Portman

“It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.”

And a number of senators have weighed in even more recently:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, just yesterday:

“I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. We are 50 some days away from an election.”

Senator Chuck Grassley in May:

“You can’t have one rule for Democratic presidents and another rule for Republican presidents.”

Senator Susan Collins very recently:

“I think that’s too close, I really do,” when asked about appointing a justice in October.

I should point out that the Trump tax return case was decided 7-2 against him by the Supreme Court. If the appeals court rules against him again, I can’t see even Gorsuch wanting to go through the same case again. Even with a new justice, a 6-3 Court isn’t enough to grant cert.

From a PR standpoint, the best thing for Republicans to do (if they plan this thing out among themselves) would be to engineer it so that it comes out to a 50-50 vote, with Pence breaking the tie, and as many Republicans as possible (namely, three - Murkowski, Collins and Romney) vote against the nominee for the sake of appearing bipartisan and ethical.

That way the R’s get their cake and eat it too. The nominee is approved and they also get to hold up three senators as proof that “we’re not all hypocrites.”

Pretty psyched to see the Collins statement. A lot of people I have been talking to were super pessimistic about her, so that’s almost like a bonus. Murkowski was pretty clear as well, so we just need Romney and one more. I’m cautiously optimistic.

You’re welcome–thanks for joining the cause! As Ann Hedonia pointed out, ActBlue is crushing it right now.

Cosigned.

I’m all but certain she was privately given a pass by McConnel to take the position she did. I’m not sure why you’re confident on Murkowski, what she said (and she said it before RBG died) was that she opposed a vote before the election (which does not rule out voting in a lame duck). Romney may be uncomfortable at the rank hypocrisy of it all, but he wouldn’t be subject to charges of personal hypocrisy – he wasn’t in the Senate when Garland was stonewalled. He can just say he believes every President should have their nominees voted on.

And even if you get all three, that fourth vote is incredibly elusive. That Senator will be forever known as the vote that killed the chance to secure a conservative Supreme Court for a generation. You cannot imagine the white-hot hate that Senator would engender from Republican leaders and rank-and-file. Why would a Cory Gardner – who win or lose on November 3 probably hopes for some sort of future in the Republican Party – be that vote? Why would Chuck Grassley or one of the retiring Republican Senators like Mike Enzi and Pat Roberts set fire to every relationship they have built?

Sorry, I know you’re just being cautiously optimistic, but I see no place for optimism in preventing the seating of Trump’s nominee. The place for optimism is in how the Democrats and voters respond to it.

If Republicans want to get really creative, they could pin their hopes on the Democrats using the “walkout to deny the R’s quorum” tactic. Then they could theoretically have a 26-25 vote in favor of Barrett (or whoever the nominee is.)

Only 51 senators need be present for quorum. With all Democrats absent, 25 Republicans could then vote against the nominee. Of course, it would still be political suicide, but it doesn’t get any more ‘principled’ and ‘bipartisan’ than this.

Also - maybe someone familiar with Maine can reply, but - does Collins stand to lose more Republican voters by voting against the nominee, or gain more moderate/light-blue votes by doing so? It’s hard to see many, if any, Democrats in Maine who would think, “You know, I was going to vote for Collins until she voted for the Supreme Court nominee, now not anymore.”

Most cases reach the Supreme Court as the result of an appeal of a lower court decision. Ties result in the lower court’s ruling standing.

Reading her statement, I see a lot of ‘shoulds’ in there. Senate should not vote prior to the election. It conspicuously does not say how she will vote if there is a vote.

I’m not familiar with the “Votemaster,” but that analysis seems ludicrous bordering on a parody of the sort of navel-gazing process arguments that Democrats make while tugging at their ascots in frustration as McConnel laughs his ass off and voters fall asleep. And its wrong. Setting aside whether “precedents are binding” (they are until they aren’t), in order to establish a precedent you have to do something on the Senate floor, usually a ruling of the presiding officer or a vote of the body. The whole point of the Garland nomination is that McConnell didn’t do anything. There’s no way a court is going to get involved in this, and it being in court won’t stop the Senate from voting and the new Justice from taking his or her seat.

I think it’s sad that she’s passed away, but it’s great news that she’s being replaced.