Given the current trend in the presidential race, shouldn’t the Republican establishment be considering holding confirmation hearings for SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland? Why hold out hope that HRC is going to nominate a more middle of the road candidate, when she would have no reason to come more towards the middle than Garland already is.
Can’t figure out what their long game is here.
Am I missing something here?
(I know this isn’t an election directly, but it is influenced by current election events)
As things currently stand, any Republican Senator voting to confirm a Supreme Court nominee from any Democratic President has thereby signed their own political death warrant in the next primary election. Unless and until that changes, there will be no hearings, even if in the abstract it would make strategic sense to do so.
There’s almost no heat on them for this issue. A lot of people around here assumed they’d be under pressure and facing a lot of Senate seat risks over this but the media has all but dropped it. Sure, if you run a poll a majority in almost every region will say they should have hearings. Unfortunately, outside of a pollster calling them up nobody is even paying attention to this story anymore.
Yep, this is what isn’t happening. Heat on the Senators for not taking action depended on the voters saying, “What the hell? This ain’t right!” That didn’t happen.
So I guess this (Supreme Court nominees not getting a vote in the last year of a Presidency) is the new normal. Next we’ll see what happens on any nomination in a President’s final year.
I can’t begin to express my sadness and my disgust at the ever expanding attitude of “party over country” in the U.S.
I think the Senate Republicans aren’t taking any heat over this because Donald Trump is sucking all the air out of the room. If you’re in the news business and you’re facing the choice of running with a piece that essentially says, “Merrick Garland still hasn’t come up for a confirmation hearing,” or one that says, “Donald Trump kicks a baby out of his event,” the choice is pretty clear.
I suspect the issue will come up again once Senate races start in earnest. For example, we haven’t even had our Senate primaries here in Florida yet, so all the focus has been on the Presidential race. Once Patrick Murphy or Alan Grayson can focus entirely on Marco Rubio and not on each other, I suspect this is one of the things they’ll hammer him on.
Another thing is that there’s a reasonable chance that the Senate will remain under Republican control next year even if Clinton wins. That’s what they’re probably hoping for. If that happens they can continue to deny Clinton’s appointments indefinitely.
Ooooo, that should work good. Ginsberg dies of old age, Thomas does a Harold Washington-style coronary from too much resentful bile and too many cheeseburgers, Roberts gets hit by a bus, etc., and we can get the Court down to just two or three justices. Think of the tax money we can save on robe-laundering.
It’s one thing to deny an appointment. I’ve seen it done. Just ignoring a President’s nomination is something new.
It looks really bad–unprofessional. However, the current Senate Republicans are too worried about avoiding damage from The Trump Debacle to care about something as mundane as Doing Their Jobs. Of course, to most of the media, it’s an old story…
They can if Obama does not withdraw the nomination. Frankly, at that point, once a new President has been elected, I would agree that a Supreme Court nomination should wait for the new President. There’s a bit of a difference between March and November.
Unless the Democrats get a majority in the Senate I think you are probably correct. In fact, unless the D’s are able to get 60 seats I would expect any Clinton nominee to be filibustered.
There is a great deal riding on this next appointment in the minds of many conservatives, particularly those who are Evangelicals. They see the next few appointments on SCOTUS as a tipping point concerning abortion, gay marriage and persecution of Christians. I had a childhood friend post a link to this bit of nuttery on Facebook making the argument Trump is the morally correct choice for Christians come November, largely because of the possibility of godless liberals stacking the courts.
If HRC gets elected and the GOP holds the Senate I fully expect them to do all they can to block any and all judicial appointments to SCOTUS or any other Federal courts for a full 8 years if needed.
That will contradict what the Democrats have been saying, that the current president should make the nomination no matter how much time is left in his/her term. It makes some sense following the election, but given the circumstances I don’t think Obama should withdraw the nomination. If Garland withdraws then waiting for the president elect’s inauguration for a new nomination would be a good idea.
Serious question: have any Democrats actually said this? I think the general objection has been that there is so much time left in Obama’s term, that it’s absurd to deny Garland a hearing on that basis. It doesn’t follow from that that any amount of time left in a President’s term warrants them being able to make a SCOTUS nomination. For example:
What I’d actually love to see, and speaking of the election in general - is a move much more back towards a “gentleman’s sport” played with honour - where people may have differences of opinion but there is mutual respect.
How would it go …
Clinton says something like …
You know what? Garland is obviously well qualified and repsected, it’s not about left or right or whatever. Good research was done by Obama and I respect his opinion, so while Garland may be more to the “right” than similar choices I would have made, he is so well qualified there is no need to change" (yeah, stream of consciousness and all, but you get the point)
Sounds good. But if we’ve still got a Republican Senate, why should they agree to play? I really haven’t noticed President Obama behaving in an ungentlemanly fashion–but we see what sort of response he’s gotten.
I believe some have said that but I can’t say it’s representative of the party. I can say that many have said the objection is the time factor, that a candidate should have a hearing and a vote in a timely manner. There will be almost 3 months following the election to inauguration, plus it takes time after that even if the new president nominates someone on day one. The principle should apply, the senate should not leave a divided court. If there is a nominee on election day they should act on that. If you quibble over the time period in one direction then you’ll get just as much argument in the other direction.
The constitutional process is faulty, IMHO stick to principle on this one. It’s the GOP playing games with this process now, the Democrats should stick to what they said, the Senate should act on the nomination, no matter who the nominee is or who holds the majority at the time.