The Republicans had a thread of an excuse for not allowing Garland to be confirmed. The Democrats don’t really have such a thread this time, though. Maybe it will work out OK for them; we’ll have to see. At any rate, the real battle is going to be over the next nominee. If the filibuster is gone, then the battle is easily won by the GOP. Of course, the Dems might conclude that the filibuster will be killed next time anyway, why not get it over now and not make the Senate Democrats vulnerable in the next midterm to being primaried on the left, and then losing in the general.
Sure they do – that Republicans refused to consider a reasonable and moderate nominee in Garland, for a year. That’s as much of a “thread of an excuse” as the GOP’s phony justifications last year.
The implication in using “Liberal”/“Conservative” is that they would be ideologically -partisan- in the interpretation. And unfortunately in daily parlance “activist” is most used to imply ideologically liberal anyway.
IM-IANAL-HO what many of us find fault with about strictly hewing to the law-as-is or to the meaning-in-1787 is that you get yourself your Dred Scotts and your Plessys where you just know that the regular legislative process is not going to correct actual evil in the law any time soon. And as the profession of the Law involves finding ways to interpret the text as it may apply to the case at hand, there is no impropriety or failure of character in looking for ways that some other part of the constitutional documents and caselaw, or the light of new facts, may provide a justification for undoing the evil. (I do happen to like that the US Constitution is NOT a pile-up of detailed issue-specific micromanagement minutiae like those of some states and foreign nations.)
Of course IM-IANAL-HO that should be exception rather than rule and for matters of protecting human/civil rights, including the unnamed “reserved” ones, from the tyranny-of-the-majority; not for the sake of making or unmaking good or bad policy for its own sake.
If you think so. It’s up to the American people to decide, though. And maybe they won’t care. It’s a complicated chess game that’s going on, and it’s difficult to pick the next best move. I’m glad I’m not a player!
I really really hope that the Dems let Gorsuch go through without a huge fight.
If they filbuster him, then in the best case scenario Trump withdraws him and then nominates someone else just as bad. Eventually the Democrats are going to have to accept some nominee or else the Republcans justifiably (albeit hypocritically) call the Democrats obstructionist and go nuclear.
The Gorsuch nomination is simply run of the mill Republican maleficence. Any other Republican who got elected would have done the same thing. If the Democrats crank the outrage up to 10 at this point, there will be no where to go when Trump does something that is truly unprecedented, such as outlaw unions, abolish the EPA, or eliminate welfare. The Democrats need to be in a position to say to the public that our opposition to these actions is more than just kneejerk partisanship. They need to be able to say “We were willing to work with the president for the good of the country and be deferential to the will of the people, but this is something that cannot stand.”
There are enough Republicans in the Senate who commented loosely that the Court would continue to work just fine with 8 justices that they should be held to their word.
It’s not about the court seat itself, and it isn’t about retribution, either. It’s really about trying to force the Republicans back into accepting responsibility. If they’re allowed to get away with their indefensible behavior re Garland, the only lesson to be drawn is that indefensible behavior works. They will continue to use it until Congress has no respectability left. That’s what’s at stake.
I imagine there are a similar number of Democratic Senators that said some variation of #EightIsNotEnough. Should they be “held to their word” too?
It was defensible but I’m not going to bother with that.
I’d like to push a phrase like “Go all Harry on them” or something like that instead of “nuclear”. I don’t recall, did Reid embrace “nuclear option” when he changed the rules ?
No, it wasn’t. It was an unprecedented obstruction, telling a sitting president, “You don’t get to nominate someone to the supreme court.” You can offer excuses, but none of them hold up to scrutiny. This was not okay; a power grab by means of nullification.
^^^^^
That’s why I’ve asserted that the Gorsuch nomination is itself illegitimate. He shouldn’t even be in this position at all.
All the Justices are outcome-oriented. Some of them pretend otherwise.
Are you sure you know what the word “unprecedented” means? Is it your contention that no other Congress failed to consider a president’s SC nominee? I only ask because we’ve been over this so many times, it’s hard to imagine you missed all of them.
It was unprecedented, in that they* refused* to do so and held no vote on anything. Yes, some congresses* tabled* the hearing, but at least* that* got a vote. It is unprecedented in that one man stopped any hearings. *One man. *
Of course they should. Imaginary senators should be held to the same high standards as real ones.
But it is not the case that the hearings were stopped by one man.
Regards,
Shodan
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell . No one else had a vote. One man, one vote.
I’m not sure if this is a witty request for a cite or not, so here you go. And in case you missed it, the old windbag is Senator Feinstein.
I’m not going to be bothered to dig it up, but I suspect some Democrat on the Judiciary Committee last year said something like “I move that we bring up the nomination of Merrick Garland for debate” and they help a vote on that motion, and the Democrats lost.
Oh… I thought you meant Limbaugh:D
Anyway, bullshit… if the rest of the Republicans didn’t agree it wouldn’t have happened and if the voting public thought it was so egregious then they would have voted differently.
Do you imagine that if you prove it was all of them rather than just Mitch McConnell, you have scored some major point? It wasn’t just him playing fast and dirty, it was all of them, so that’s better? Or is it somebody was wrong on a fairly minor point, therefore you win something?
Not sure on your point. If something stinks, does it smell better if they get away with it at the polls? Or something doesn’t stink if you can fool enough people?
Or that Il Douche’s landslide vote majority makes it all better?