Schumer Urges Filibuster to Block Gorsuch Confirmation

Doubtful, but irrelevant. If I do something immoral, I can reasonably expect consequences. The current American political landscape is that you can count on your political base to vote for you no matter what, and enough others will buy into it if you slather the media with enough lies to placate their greed, hatred and fear. Combine that with half the population being indifferent and you’re golden.

You might want to read up on your US history…the nature of partisan politics never changes. Going back to the Roman senate.

Nothing at all. However, the Dems could just change the rules to whatever they liked, the next time they had a Senate majority.

All that keeps that from happening is, or has been, respect for Senate tradition. I expect the legislative filibuster will soon follow the filibusters on Executive and judicial appointments into the dustbin of history.

ETA: ‘Soon’ as in a single-digit number of years.

Yeah. Humbly, I would arbitrarily put the cut off at the preceding November election date. But if the president and the Senate agree, well, its up to them.

Trump made a show of having a list of possible SCOTUS nominees prepared. The reality is any president *should * have a list of sorts even if there is not a vacancy pending. I would imagine they have put some thought into it and come up with something of a list, even if they don’t make such a list public.

Did you post a similar statement in 2013?

Yeah, if in November 2024, Trump loses to Elizabeth Warren and the Senate is about to change hands from Democrats to Republicans, I suspect they’d find a way to squeeze in hearings and a vote on any SCOTUS vacancy that opened up before January.

You mean, “Pence loses,” I’m guessing, unless you figure we’ll ditch the 22nd Amendment before then. :wink:

My bad, I was thinking about Trump leaving office then and incorrectly posited that he’d lose an election, when it would be his potential replacement. Thanks for the correction.

The reality is that the Republicans had nothing to lose in dumping the filibuster, because it was eminently clear that if the Democrats regain a majority and the Republicans tried to filibuster their nominee, they would kill it anyway. That’s the result of Reid’s attempt to ‘selectively’ eliminate the filibuster in 2013: Once one side has shown its willingness to abrogate what was esssentially a gentleman’s agreement when it suits them, they can’t be trusted to not do it again. In that case, unilaterally abiding by that agreement simply hurts your own side for no future advantage.

The filibuster died in 2013, and the left and the media were totally okay with it. This last act simply threw a few more shovels of dirt on the corpse.

You’d have a better point if the Republicans hadn’t been pissing all over the “gentleman’s agreement” by blocking scores of Obama’s judicial nominees, not on the merits of the nominated, but the nominator.

That may also be true, but they can point to Democrats doing the same thing.

Perhaps the lesson here is that agreements based on the honor system are worthless in a Washington where honor among politicians left a long time ago. On both sides of the aisle.

Give us your own favorite examples, then. Go ahead, take your time. :rolleyes:

FDRs court packing. :rolleyes:

Well, I certainly won’t be supporting any of the Democrats who were behind that skullduggery, believe you me.

Benen refreshes our recollection of who broke which ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in 2013:

There’s your ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that had been intact for my entire lifetime, up to the Obama presidency: that Presidents get to fill vacancies in the Federal courts that arise during their terms, regardless of which party controls the Senate. The Senate may reject particular nominees for specific reasons, but other than that, the President’s nominees become judges and Justices.

From almost the beginning of Obama’s Presidency, the Republicans abandoned that agreement, first in subtle ways (e.g. by slow-walking every nomination, taking up the 30 hours of post-cloture debate even on nominees approved unanimously), then in more blatant ways, like wholesale filibustering.

Saying that Reid broke the gentleman’s agreement is being completely and totally disingenuous. It was already broken, spindled, mutilated, and eaten and upchucked by coyotes, before Reid gave up and exercised the ‘nuclear option’ in 2013.

Cite for the truth of that quoted claim?

When is a cite not a cite?

When Bricker says so. Bricker is the ultimate arbiter of all things.

Speaking of cites, where’s your Pit thread backing up with cites the claims you made in post #549? I continue to await it with bated breath.

Which didn’t work, ftr.

The both-sides-ism the GOP’s cheerleaders have had to engage in to justify their behavior has been breathtaking in its non-factuality.

Because even the members of his own party recognized it as reprehensible. I will give no apology for FDR for pursuing the scheme, but I will give credit to the congressional Democrats who opposed it even to their partisan disadvantage.

  1. Breathe.

  2. I asked for a cite for the truth of the quoted claim.

This means that I dispute the claim in the link, which simply states "said they didn’t want Obama to appoint anyone to the appellate court, ever, as a fact, with no citation to actual senators or actual quotes. I disagree that this statement is true.

You appear to think that a cite is a cite – any link to any HTML page on the internet is a cite. Is that what you’re saying?

If it is, then my cite to any claim I make will be very easy henceforth. If that’s the only standard I need, let me know, and I’ll happily cite anything you please.