A decision to depend on those Senate wackos, and especially a decision to depend on all of them, is a decision to fail.
I have no particular knowledge of this website but I presume that it’s non-partisan for the purposes of this thread:
It’s giving me an expected life span of 90 years and a 70% probability of getting to 85 (using my guestimates for Sotomayor).
That said, I’d guess that she’s several whole integers more likely to keel over and die at any moment than a 40 year old judge that jogs every day. There’s also a good chance that the Senate will flip back to Republican in which case, even under a Biden presidency, it may be impossible to appoint a new SC justice. It will definitely be impossible after the third year.
And then we’re looking at the likelihood of Kamala Harris winning against Ron De Santis. I wouldn’t be amazingly hopeful.
She basically needs to die or retire in the next four year window. If she stays where she is longer than that, she’s harming her legal viewpoint’s legacy pretty significantly. The safest would be within the next several months.
After what happened the last time a presidential election became a referendum on which party gets to fill a seat on the Court?
The difference is that right now given the Senate’s makeup, the Rs can bluster and whine but not do. Last time they could do. And did.
Hence all the arguments for the Ds to do now before the Rs regain the ability to do themselves.
She would retire on confirmation of her successor and would have the right to rescind it at any point before that, so even if a replacement was somehow blocked and then Biden lost the election, she could just say “never mind” during the lame duck period and stay on the court.
The actual risks for Democrats are, IMO:
A) The vetting process is botched so badly that it causes negative electoral consequences for Democrats.
B) Enough senators throw wrenches into the process that it makes Biden look weak and causes negative electoral consequences.
C) The new justice turns out to be a dud in some respect (ideology, health, whatever).
I don’t think these are as bad as the chances that a 69 year old will be blessed with the option of retiring during the next term in which Democrats have the White House and the Senate, whenever that is (I personally hope it’s next year, but my hope is not worth much).
This sounds utterly backwards.
IANA expert but IMO the administration cannot begin the replacement process until after there’s an irrevocable resignation and therefore a vacancy.
To be sure they could conduct a talent hunt in advance of need. But they could not advance the substantive process whit one until a vacancy exists.
Call me a wide-eyed optimist (I get that a lot), but I have a hard time believing – should Biden be reelected and the Republicans take the Senate this fall – that Senate Republicans would maintain a Supreme Court nomination blockade for the full four years of Biden’s term. For one thing, even if Republicans do take the Senate – and particularly if Biden’s simultaneously getting reelected – they’re unlikely to have more than a 1 or 2 seat majority. And that majority will still include at least a couple Senators who want to maintain some semblance of decorum.
I think it also make a difference if it’s a liberal or conservative justice retiring. I think a Republican Senate Majority would be more inclined to let Biden replace a liberal justice – it just isn’t worth the grief they’d take when the Court would stay 6-3 anyway. A conservative vacancy would be a different matter – the hard right is too suspicious of John Roberts to let him back into the role of swing vote.
It has been the practice of the last several Supreme Court justices who resigned to state they are resigning effective, “upon the confirmation of my successor.” They have continued to serve as Justices until their successors were confirmed.
Has that also been the practice of the last few hard right “what if we didn’t?” Senates?
I was about to ask the same question. Is this one of those “tradition” things or one of those “legal” things?
It’s a normal practice in the federal judiciary. See the list of future judicial vacancies, for which nine replacements have already been nominated by the President. The ones marked TBD did the “upon confirmation of my successor” gambit.
If you’re in the majority and you can’t be filibustered, you just pass it through in 2 days and move on with life.
As mentioned above, that’s assuming the “ME ME ME” caucus of Manchin/Sinema/Menendez (and increasingly Fetterman from what I’m hearing) decides to play ball.
So, give them a list of ten normal, uninteresting, respected judges, tell them to cross out anyone they won’t vote for, and choose whoever remains.
You can’t pass some crank, hyperpartisan. That’s alright by me.
We’ll never return to the point where a Supreme Court nominee can be approved in a couple days. Even stalwart Senators of the President’s party need their egos stroked to be assured that they are a Very Important Part of vetting the nominee and not merely a rubber stamp. They’ll demand to meet with the nominee to query their judicial philosophy on countercyclical potato subsidies or whatever other pet issue matters to them. They live to ask furrowed-brow questions in confirmation hearings and expound on the Senate floor about their own judicial philosophies. They’ll use their outrage over the scurrilous opposition to this eminently qualified nominee to drive their fundraising. In short, the circus of a nomination is just as important to the President’s party as it is to the opposition.