I think turnout dropped off because of the Bernie/Hillary fight, and because of Hillary’s own flaws.
Plus, everything changes when you’re in the minority. The Republicans’ refusal to consider Garland probably helped their turnout, even though Garland was just as “calm and moderate-appearing” as Gorsuch.
I’m not talking about the general principle of appointment-blocking, I’m talking about the political calculus of blocking a very high profile nomination (Supreme Court) in an election year - the new Republican example shows that this fires up the base more than it hurts them with moderates, and is a road to electoral success.
Why in the world do you believe the Dems wouldn’t get rid of the filibuster if it suited them? For starters, they already did, in 2013, for all non-SCOTUS nominees. And quite a few of them talked rather openly prior to the election about doing it during Hillary’s first term to replace Scalia if the GOP (envisioned as the minority party) filibustered.
The point is that it dropped. Voters were not outraged enough to get up and vote in 2016 when the refusal to hold hearings on Garland was fresh in everyone’s minds. In 2018, though, they will still be pissed. That, I’ll have to see.
There are a lot more Democratic Senate seats up in 2018 than there are GOP ones. Another factor the Dems are going to have to overcome.
Regards,
Shodan
Trump might still be president in 2018, and he is despised.
And the Republicans are going to have to overcome the sinking anchor around their necks that is the Trump administration and its cratering approval ratings. They are even dropping among his biggest blocks of supporters, Republicans, Whites, and Men:
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2442
He’s only been President for less than 3 months and he’s already hemorrhaging support and his approval ratings are lowest ever for this point in a Presidential term, and still falling. Do you think that this isn’t going to factor in for 2018? How much further will he fall by then?
Let’s see if I can make an analogy.
Imagine that, in a game of soccer, we decide that in some cases, we can turn a blind eye to the offsides rule, because it’s an amateur game, and nobody gets the rule very well, and nobody cares enough to police it. Then, while one side has ball control, they abuse the ever-loving shit out of that rule, squeezing every last bit of advantage out of it they can. Their opponents protest to the ref. Then, the very first time the other side has ball control and makes a single offsides pass, the other side lobbies the refs to reinstate the rule because of how horrifically unfair it is.
Is there any inherent hypocrisy in finding one of these examples reasonable, and the other not? Because that’s what we’re dealing with here. The republicans filibustered everything. They used the filibuster for basically any legislation they disagreed with, they used it to block appointments to cabinet positions not because they disagreed with the appointments, but because they disagreed with the existence of the cabinet, and of course, they used it to block judicial nominees. It was inherently reasonable to look at that and say, “Okay, fuck it, this isn’t going to work, we need to get rid of the filibuster or the government cannot function.” It is considerably less reasonable to say, “Okay, you guys aren’t going to support this one judicial nominee? Fine, we’ll just take away the filibuster.” There’s no hypocrisy in supporting the former while rejecting the latter.
In the '80s, the democrats rejected a specific nominee due to his history and his politics. The following two nominations made by republican presidents went through basically without a hitch.
In the '10s, the republicans filibustered massive numbers of judicial nominees (and denied cabinet positions), to an unprecedented degree.
As I keep pointing out, the Bork argument is just bullshit. Give it a rest. Three decades ago, the democrats blocked an unpopular supreme court justice with a spotted past, involvement in the Watergate scandal, and some disgusting views about race and gender. Apparently this means that it is therefore okay for republicans to filibuster something like 70 Obama court nominees, deny him the ability to nominate a judge of his choice, even a compromise pick that the republicans had previously praised, and more? Here, a similarly reasonable and well-meted punishment.
So tell me, how long should democrats continue the strategy of “be the adult in the room”? I mean, it’s worked so well for the last 8 years! :rolleyes: At some point, you have to admit it isn’t working, and try something different. Why would you assume that we can convince three republicans - any three republicans - to maintain a filibuster on the next conservative justice Trump decides to put in? Collins and Murkowski are sane, okay, but even assuming they wouldn’t be afraid of getting primaried, and wouldn’t buckle to the pressure, who’s number three? Cotton? McCain? Ha ha ha, very funny.
Yes, it will be tough (though the House will be less tough)… but the alternative is to curl up and die, so I’m in favor of fighting.
They were pretty much desperate at that point; it was either that, or be essentially shut out of putting judges on the Federal courts for the rest of the Obama Presidency. And even under those circumstances, rounding up the requisite votes was a close call.
You don’t need ‘quite a few’ of them. You need at least 50 of them. Which means that if the Dems pick up a net of 5 seats between now and 2021, they can only lose three Senators, max, on that filibuster vote, which means at least three of Manchin and Heitkamp and Tester and McCaskill and Donnelly and Angus King, plus everyone else.
Aside to squidfood: the Dems’ chances of retaking the Senate in 2018, even in a wave election, are only slightly above zero. They’ve got 48 Senators now, so they’d need 3 pickups, while not losing any of the seats they now hold. Of the 8 seats in the 2018 class held by Republicans, one is in NV (a good prospect), one in AZ (maybe in a wave election), and the rest in Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, Utah, and Wyoming. So an “if we take the Senate in 2018” campaign kinda worries me, because while it’s not impossible, it’s just very, very, VERY improbable.
This was a response, not to Bork, but to the Dems filibustering of nominees during the GWB presidency. You seem to have skipped that part of the story in your retelling.
I’d like to hear your opinion on a matter: Schumer has urged Trump to “change the nominee, not the rules”, but most every Republican seems to regard it as a foregone conclusion that the Senate Dems would filibuster the new nominee too. Looking at Trump’s list of 21 judges from which he promised to nominate, are there any there that you think the Senate Dems would not filibuster? If so, who?
Yeah, 10 of his first 200 appointments to the lower courts. And zero of his SCOTUS appointments. Outrageous!!
And some of those 10 lower court appointees got their judgeships in the ‘Gang of 14’ deal. (And the rest got dropped, so nobody was blocked for the length of Dubya’s term.)
No. Otherwise Douglas Ginsburg would be on the Supreme Court.
It was Reagan’s third nominee, Anthony Kennedy, that ended up taking Powell’s seat.
Yes, that’s what it means. Shockingly, your lens says that every step the Democrats take over the line is a fine idea, but Republicans are only ever allowed to follow the precedent that the Democrats have created (if even that!)
Screw that. You don’t get to decide what is and is not OK. This shit is happening, bucko. Don’t like it? Too damn bad.
If my facts are correct, George W. Bush’s nomination of Miguel Estrada was the first ever appeals court nominee to be successfully filibustered. If you can’t see why that might outrage Republicans, you’re not looking very hard.
Not voting for a nominee is a step over the line? Are you sure you know what a vote is? Because if it is what you think it is then we probably don’t need to do it.
The reason is (or rather, was) important. Bork was a former Solicitor General, well qualified to serve. He was rejected for political reasons related to payback for his role in the Nixon Administration, not related to his qualifications.
So, yes, that was a step over the line.
And having taken that step, Democrats wanted the stepping to stop. They wanted to be able to push, but were aghast at Republicans pushing back.
But the basic norm was set right then: the Democrats’ implicit declaration that they had the power, so they could do it. Republicans adopted that lesson, and thanks so much for teaching it.
Your cite actually spells out in great detail why “82 nominees blocked” is not accurate. Did you read your own cite?
Wait, it’s not OK to vote for a position based on a person’s political beliefs? You think Democrats would have gladly voted for Bork’s because of his stated desire to roll back civil rights, but his stupidity wrt Nixon was a step too far?
Just to clarify, you approve of the general *concept *of voting, but if someone votes for a reason you don’t approve of, it’s time to burn shit down?
By our calculation, there were actually 68 individual nominees blocked prior to Obama taking office and 79 (so far) during Obama’s term, for a total of 147.
Reid’s point is actually a bit stronger using these these revised numbers. Using these figures, blockages under Obama actually accounted for more than half of the total, not less then half. Either way, it’s disproportionate by historical standards.
Yeah, that totally changes things
Conservatives do seem to be adhering quite closely to the line:
‘Dems should just quietly confirm Gorsuch because doing so will lead Trump and the Republicans to think well of them, and thus be moved to reward them by nominating a moderate Justice (instead of a radically-right one) for the next opening.’
This truly is so much horseshit.
Whether or not Democrats filibuster, Trump (or Pence, should Donald decide to retire to Cyprus before the end of his term) will certainly nominate only radically-right-wing replacements for any Justices whose seats become vacant. This ‘Dems should be nice and then maybe Republicans will be nice to them!’ argument is hilarious. (And it’s certainly very disingenuous of conservatives to make it.)
As for the voting public: standing up against Gorsuch–who despite his nice C.V. is not so universally held to be ‘well qualified’ as conservatives claim–is going to be a badge of honor for Democrats seeking re-election.
The issue of qualification for appointment to the Supreme Court is about more than being presentable and having a sparkling resume. It’s about judicial temperament, too. According to the ABA, such a temperament must include:
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/scfedjud/statements/wallace2.authcheckdam.pdf
Gorsuch has shown himself to be prone to ruling with bias (on behalf of the wealthy and powerful). His qualifications, very satisfactory to conservatives, are looked on by less-conservative observers as being inadequate to the requirements of the post to which he aspires.
