# Schumer Urges Filibuster to Block Gorsuch Confirmation
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 23, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845 "2017-03-23T16:45:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 26
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/501 "2017-04-04T20:12:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Do you know what the Senate did after Johnson nominated Henry Stanbery to the Supreme Court? You’ll notice the Senate did not vote on him. How does that their tactic square with your vision of the “forefathers?”
\*The Senate took no action on his nomination as they had recently reduced the court’s size through the Judicial Circuits Act.
\*
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/SCOTUS\_trivia.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/SCOTUS_trivia.htm)
Thus there was no opening to fill. Thus there was no vote.
---
### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/502 "2017-04-04T20:26:51Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#):
>
> Not to mention the weakness of, “there is no rule stating there must be hearings.” The forefathers put this shit together with the idea that the President would nominate a judge and the Senate would provide advice and consent and then vote him in or out … but, whoops, they forgot to mention that the best way of going about all that is done through hearings (although the congresses for the previous 200 or so years managed to figure it out easily enough without being micromanaged), so \*boing \*- loophole! Not holding hearings - perfectly acceptable because it isn’t explicitly laid out in the Constitution. We’ll just \*call \*that advice and consent and no one will be the wiser.
>
> It’s nakedly craven. Anything to get their way, with no shame whatsoever.
I’m having trouble parsing this - are you conceding that you made an error when you stated there was a rule?
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/503 "2017-04-04T20:29:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Do you know what the Senate did after Johnson nominated Henry Stanbery to the Supreme Court? You’ll notice the Senate did not vote on him. How does that their tactic square with your vision of the “forefathers?”
Stanberry was nominated in 1866. I’m pretty sure none of the original Congress were still serving by then.
---
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/504 "2017-04-04T20:52:59Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> \*The Senate took no action on his nomination as they had recently reduced the court’s size through the Judicial Circuits Act.
> \*
> [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/SCOTUS\_trivia.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/SCOTUS_trivia.htm)
>
> Thus there was no opening to fill. Thus there was no vote.
Yes. What was the effect of the Judicial Circuits Act?
It reduced the size of the Supreme Court from the 9[sup]\*[/sup] then-current members to 6. And it was repealed when Johnson left office.
The effect was to ensure that Johnson could make no Supreme Court nominations.
- Technically 10 members: one vacancy, for which Johnson nominated Stanbery, and 9 members.
---
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/505 "2017-04-04T20:54:41Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Stanberry was nominated in 1866. I’m pretty sure none of the original Congress were still serving by then.
Me, too. But this was an earlier Senate that did away with a President’s Supreme Court nominees in contravention of the Batty Forefather Rule.
---
### Author:  [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/506 "2017-04-04T20:55:42Z")
As expected. No addressing of the spirit of anything. I mention ‘no shame’ and not one argument against. The only thing I get is, “Oh yeah! Well what if you tilt your head this way instead and squint like really, really hard.”
Everyone who reads this, now or in the future, you included, knows that denying Garland a hearing was a nakedly craven maneuver by the Republicans to avoid an opposition party President from replacing one of their ideologues.
If the shoe were on the other foot and the Democrats pulled anything like this they’d be branded traitors as a group.
---
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/507 "2017-04-04T20:59:12Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#):
>
> As expected. No addressing of the spirit of anything. I mention ‘no shame’ and not one argument against. The only thing I get is, “Oh yeah! Well what if you tilt your head this way instead and squint like really, really hard.”
I don’t agree you get to be the one that decides what the “spirit” of anything is.
How about we use my definition of what the spirit is, instead?
---
### Author:  [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/508 "2017-04-04T21:04:26Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> I’m having trouble parsing this - are you conceding that you made an error when you stated there was a rule?
I fucking hate this minutia-beating, gish-galloping tactic. Will you please look at the big picture instead of trying to goad me into reciting the Constitution for you.
“The Republicans avoided the rules,” as in, they avoided hearings to advise and consent as has always been done, in the spirit of the senate (which I’ve heard Republicans panting about in the past) and made up their own standard out of a loophole (_there’s no rule that we have to have hearings … I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you)_. I did not make an error; you just didn’t like my analysis of the maneuver.
My post above stands. It was a bullshit move that wouldn’t have been tolerated in a converse situation and you goddamned well know it.
---
### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/509 "2017-04-04T21:09:23Z")
Do you know what gish-galloping is? Because from reading your post it doesn’t seem like you do.
---
### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/510 "2017-04-04T21:09:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Yes. What was the effect of the Judicial Circuits Act?
>
> It reduced the size of the Supreme Court from the 9[sup]\*[/sup] then-current members to 6. And it was repealed when Johnson left office.
>
> The effect was to ensure that Johnson could make no Supreme Court nominations.
>
> - Technically 10 members: one vacancy, for which Johnson nominated Stanbery, and 9 members.
Has anyone suggested that Congress could not reduce the size of the Supreme Court to deny Obama the ability to appoint anyone? No. But they didn’t.
---
### Author:  [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/511 "2017-04-04T21:16:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Do you know what gish-galloping is? Because from reading your post it doesn’t seem like you do.
Yeah. I do. What? Are we going to argue about this for 10 pages now instead of recognizing the Republicans’ evil ways? Okay, let’s go. I was getting sick of correcting my spelling of “cloture” every time anyway.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/512 "2017-04-04T21:20:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Yes. What was the effect of the Judicial Circuits Act?
>
> It reduced the size of the Supreme Court from the 9[sup]\*[/sup] then-current members to 6. And it was repealed when Johnson left office.
>
> The effect was to ensure that Johnson could make no Supreme Court nominations.
>
> - Technically 10 members: one vacancy, for which Johnson nominated Stanbery, and 9 members.
Was the Judicial Circuits Act debated on and voted on?
---
### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/513 "2017-04-04T21:27:51Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#):
>
> Yeah. I do. What? Are we going to argue about this for 10 pages now instead of recognizing the Republicans’ evil ways? Okay, let’s go. I was getting sick of correcting my spelling of “cloture” every time anyway.
No, I’ll take your word on it. Since you want to “look at the big picture”, let’s try that. The “advice and consent” role of the Senate has become increasingly-partisan over the last several decades. This week we’ll see the next two steps in that process, when the Democrats filibuster a Supreme Court nominee and the Republicans override that filibuster with the “nuclear option”. Prior to that, Republicans didn’t give Garland a hearing. Prior to that, Harry Reid and the Democrats used the “nuclear option” for non-SCOTUS nominees. Prior to that, Republicans filibustered a bunch of Obama’s nominees. Prior to that, Democrats filibustered Bush nominees. Prior to that, I imagine Republicans did something during the Clinton Presidency (BTW, it delights me that I can still refer to “the Clinton Presidency” without any additional clarification), but I don’t know what that was, and prior to that, the Democrats borked Bork. That’s the big picture. It’s been an escalating conflict in which both sides have taken more extreme steps to try and beat the other. Garland’s non-hearing was just the last link in the chain, until later this week when both parties will add another escalation each to the history books. You want to get apoplectic about it, but many of us see it for what it is: just one more escalation in a long line of escalations, soon to be “trumped” by yet another escalation and another one after that.
---
### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/514 "2017-04-04T21:34:19Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> No, I’ll take your word on it. Since you want to “look at the big picture”, let’s try that. The “advice and consent” role of the Senate has become increasingly-partisan over the last several decades. This week we’ll see the next two steps in that process, when the Democrats filibuster a Supreme Court nominee and the Republicans override that filibuster with the “nuclear option”. Prior to that, Republicans didn’t give Garland a hearing. Prior to that, Harry Reid and the Democrats used the “nuclear option” for non-SCOTUS nominees. Prior to that, Republicans filibustered a bunch of Obama’s nominees. Prior to that, Democrats filibustered Bush nominees. Prior to that, I imagine Republicans did something during the Clinton Presidency (BTW, it delights me that I can still refer to “the Clinton Presidency” without any additional clarification), but I don’t know what that was, and prior to that, the Democrats borked Bork. That’s the big picture. It’s been an escalating conflict in which both sides have taken more extreme steps to try and beat the other. Garland’s non-hearing was just the last link in the chain, until later this week when both parties will add another escalation each to the history books. You want to get apoplectic about it, but many of us see it for what it is: just one more escalation in a long line of escalations, soon to be “trumped” by yet another escalation and another one after that.
And do you see this escalation as taking us on a path that we really want to be on?
---
### Author:  [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/515 "2017-04-04T21:40:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Yes. What was the effect of the Judicial Circuits Act?
>
> It reduced the size of the Supreme Court from the 9[sup]\*[/sup] then-current members to 6. And it was repealed when Johnson left office.
>
> The effect was to ensure that Johnson could make no Supreme Court nominations.
>
> - Technically 10 members: one vacancy, for which Johnson nominated Stanbery, and 9 members.
Congress made a law unilaterally denying a Supreme Court nomination to a sitting President? Oh wait, Johnson knowingly signed it, nullifying his own nomination, who was also rejected as Attorney General by the Senate. Congress under Johnson certainly did everything to screw him over, but that wound was entirely self-inflicted. Had he vetoed and the overrode him (like they did several times), that’s covered in the Constitution and perfectly fine. I can’t imagine how the President that granted amnesty to Jefferson Davis three years after the Civil War ended had problems governing. Don’t get me wrong, he got rode hard by Congress, but the Stanbery nomination fiasco can’t be blamed solely on them.
---
### Author:  [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/516 "2017-04-04T21:45:53Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> And do you see this escalation as taking us on a path that we really want to be on?
As I’ve said before, no, I do not, but neither side seems interested in avoiding further escalation, or listening to my advice on the matter. You and I are largely spectators (unless you’ve secretly got Schumer’s ear). Frankly, after the nuclear option, I’m not sure what further escalation there is available to either side, so maybe there is some hope of _additional_ escalation ending. Still, I wouldn’t put it past them to find some new and inventive ways to piss of their opponents and get their way.
---
### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/517 "2017-04-04T22:07:31Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#):
>
> I fucking hate this minutia-beating, gish-galloping tactic. Will you please look at the big picture instead of trying to goad me into reciting the Constitution for you.
No need to recite the constitution - just the rule you reference. I take it you can’t.
Call it cowardly, opportunistic, hypocritical even, or all sorts of other descriptors and I wouldn’t argue since that’s a fair (though disagreeable) interpretation. But if you describe it as violative of some rule, then that’s a factual statement and you are wrong.
Is it one of the board’s norms to point out mistakes of fact? Or is that a rule? (I don’t think it’s a rule).
---
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/518 "2017-04-04T22:18:49Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Was the Judicial Circuits Act debated on and voted on?
Sure. Passed and signed by Johnson, although the evidence suggests he was aware that a veto would be fruitless, since there were the votes to override it.
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### Author:  [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/519 "2017-04-04T23:37:10Z")
When you lose Cher…
>
“DEMS, The“Merrick Garland” SHIP HAS SAILED‼️ Let It Go…OR….Do You Want Some [cheese] To Go With Your WHINE⁉️ This Tantrum Wreaks Of Desperation”
---
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schumer-urges-filibuster-to-block-gorsuch-confirmation/782845/520 "2017-04-04T23:42:49Z")
“Wreaks” ?
Anyway, Garland wasn’t the hero of that story - it was just Republicans being the villains.
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