Since you clearly don’t get the context, the Republicans made this a giant issue when Obama had an open Supreme Court seat towards the end of his term. Let’s call a spade a spade: the republicans have no regard for the constitution or laws of the land if they benefit from ignoring it. They will now ignore the precedent they set and place a new Supreme Court justice.
Ultimately, a President with a friendly Senate will always fill the seat. An unfriendly Senate is going to delay the heck out of it. Any rhetoric around that is pretty much just noise. They will send someone through as they've published a couple of lists and have been filling the lower courts pretty quickly. It is not like people weren't aware Justice Ginsburg was very sick.
Frankly, given the President, I would bet it will occur within the next week or two. I do wonder what the polling will be like on this issue. I can actually see a couple of scenarios where Democrats would want to run on a filled seat.
> An unfriendly Senate is going to delay the heck out of it.
You hit on the problem without seeming to realize it. The Senate didn't delay the heck out of anything. McDonnell flat out refused to do anything about Garland's nomination. He declared the nomination "null and void" based on no precedence, case law, and certainly not any interpretation of the Constitution. The Senate majority leader should not be able to shut down the Senate and prevent it from performing its Constitutionally mandated tasks. If the Senate didn't want to confirm Garland they should have held all the appropriate hearings and held an approval vote. If it's the Senate's will that Garland not be approved that's fine. It was singularly McConnell's will that Garland not be approved so he just never allowed hearings. No matter your political leanings that should be seen as abhorrent if you profess to want law and order.
You hit on the problem without seeming to realize it.
Wow, being a bit insulting there. I am stating how it works. The Senate Majority leader can do it. That's how it works. Supposed to doesn't really matter when talking about what will happen.
> He declared the nomination "null and void" based on no precedence, case law, and certainly not any interpretation of the Constitution.
Ultimately a legislator's job isn't to respect precedence or case law. It's to create new law (and presumably precedent).
I don't think your point is unfounded, I just think arguing for a legislator to behave like a judge takes away from that point (unless you have a good argument why they should, but I think including that argument would be good at that point).
Early noise on Twitter is that Biden’s response to a filled seat is an expansion of the court to 11 seats.
Not sure what the calculus is. If it’s unfilled, Biden will fill it. If it’s filled, he’ll expand the court. Not sure if that also depends on a senate flip, but I have a hard time believing the senate doesn’t flip during a Biden win.
It would be a proportionate and appropriate response, and hopefully restore an equilibrium in response to a constitutional crisis provoked by McConnell.
Far from a disaster, it will be something approaching mandatory to restore faith in the institution. The disaster already came. But because this response would come in the future and the disaster happened in the past, some people have the psychological reaction of thinking that a new thing is unacceptable while uncritically accepting bad things that have already happened, which is called shifting baseline syndrome.
It is correct to say that they have had plenty of time to provoke a constitutional crisis. It is also correct to note that they could have resorted to abusive procedure even worse than the one they already did. Which is like saying they created a category four hurricane instead of a category five.
I'm still surprised the Democrats try to discuss compromise at this point. You can't compromise with someone running a madman strategy, realistically I don't know any true independents on the political spectrum at this point.
The Democratic Party legislates as if it represents all Americans. Which means compromise.
Rarely has the Democratic Party held all three branches recently. Holding the senate is a huge win for the republicans - they can be as obstinate and block things and only need a barest majority to do appointments and many other procedural shenanigans.
Like what the fuck is the house supposed to negotiate with? “We won’t pass bills”: the republican senate is entirely happy not to have bills passed. Now what?
The Republican Party is entirely devoted to debasing government and spoiling the notion of governance.
Well, the house explicitly has financial powers, and they can impeach officials. If the house was republican and the senate was democratic, you would see much more financing for projects Trump wanted. Like, just to make up the most ridiculous example we could think of, a giant wall...
Respectfully, you probably do know independents. We just don't often talk about our political views to people who say compromise is dead and you have to be on one side or the other.
I'm an independent, who will be voting Democratic. The Democratic party is spineless, corrupt, and oddly radicalized in some ways. But at least they're not explicitly trying to undermine pillars our constitution and democracy are built on. The Republican party has shown they are enemies of a free America, opting to focus on wealth and power concentration.
To me, being independent means recognizing that both parties align themselves with some things I do not stand for, and some things that I do (though to be fair, the Republican party holds almost no views that I hold at this point). That doesn't mean I view them as equals, and that doesn't mean I'm on the fence. I'm throwing in with Democrats this time, but I'm very far from calling myself a Democrat.
I think you misunderstand how independents think. I'm not sitting on any fence; I have pretty strong political beliefs, which just don't align well with either of the major factions in modern American politics.
It's more like the congress exercised there constitution power to do fuck all if they wanted. Just cause it's a shitty thing doesn't make it un-constitution. What happened to Obama was his party didn't have the votes to approve someone so it didn't happen that's it.
If they hold hearing for a 45 nominee before the election, they prove they were acting in bad faith. The expectation is that the president gets to appoint judges during his term, unless there is a reason to deny the nominee. By denying that they challenge the power of the executive branch. I.e. Does the president only get to pick a judge if the senate is a majority from the same party?
It's a bad faith enforcement of the constitution. In democracies like the US, precedents are as powerful as laws. This was not literally breaking any laws, but this was as bad as breaking a law.
Doing things that are so obviously destructive to the whole institution of government that the Founders thought it wasn't worth writing down in the era of quill pens on sheepskins, because they couldn't imagine anyone being evil enough to do it? Yes, that's what bad faith is. It's things you can technically create a justification for that contradict all decency.
Yes and there is tons of case law on what the Senate actually needs to do and the result is "fuck all". The Federal government is designed to gridlock rather then forcing things to happen.
No, what happened is that Mitch McConnell refused to even allow a vote, and even Republican senators wouldn't have been able to vote for the centrist proposed by Obama.
There's no probably about it or thinking required. That is literally the law. The President nominates a replacement, and the Senate votes to confirm it or not. There are plenty of layers of politics, posturing, and pomp added on, but the law is simple and clear.
I mean legally it's always been this the Supreme Court has been very clear on every cases regarding confirmation that Congress is free to act or not act at it's leisure.
This wasn't always the case, here's an excerpt from the wiki on recent changes making this the case:
"Senate cloture rules historically required a two-thirds affirmative vote to advance nominations to a vote; this was changed to a three-fifths supermajority in 1975. In November 2013, the then-Democratic Senate majority eliminated the filibuster for executive branch nominees and judicial nominees except for Supreme Court nominees by invoking the so-called nuclear option. In April 2017, the Republican Senate majority applied the nuclear option to Supreme Court nominations as well,[2] enabling the nominations of Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to proceed to a vote.[3][4] "
The filibuster has always seemed anti-democratic - it’s not in the constitution, and I’m pretty sure that historically it was a way to make give the minority senators more power at the expense of the people.
To be fair, they passed the ruling for non-supreme court justices. Republicans extended it to include them in 2017. Still, an example of terrible governance and foresight on both sides.
That would be incorrect, unless you are talking about a regular federal judge and not a Supreme Court justice. In the latter case, it was a rule the Republicans changed in 2017 to benefit themselves.
I find this “thems the laws” theme in this thread pretty outrageous. Congress used run on decorum, arcane rules, and norms. Those norms were thrown out the window when the Senate refused to even have a hearing on Merrick Garland. Arguably, they had a legal requirement to do at least that. But now we’re supposed to pretend that “rules are rules”, and this is all totally normal.
I was specifically replying to the comment "they aren't following the constitution or laws".
Sure, it may be very hypocritical to fill the seat before the election, but has politics not been hypocritical? And in "norms", the refusal to have a hearing on Merrick Garland is not the first example. Congress flouting "norms" goes back centuries.
Obama had more time left than Trump so the hypocrisy coming out of the Senate will be that much richer.
> “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said
> “You’d have to go back to 1888 when Grover Cleveland was in the White House to find the last time a vacancy created in a presidential year was confirmed by the party opposite the occupant of the White House,” McConnell said in March 2016
> “We think the important principle in the middle of this presidential election, which is raging, is that the American people need to weigh in and decide who’s going to make this decision,” McConnell said
> Speaking in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday, McConnell was asked what he would do about a high court vacancy if a seat were to open up [in 2020].
“Oh, we’d fill it,” McConnell said
Precedent doesn't mean anything because what happened wasn't a legal ruling. None of the rules changed. Senate acted the way it was allowed to and will act the way it is allowed to now as well to get our guy in and keep their guy out.
This is a laughable inability to distinguish between 'I don't like it' and 'it's unconstitutional and illegal', mixed with obvious massive hypocrisy.
When the Republicans refused to confirm Garland, they did it fully within the processes laid out in the constitution.
If the Democrats had the senate now, we can guarantee they would have blocked every Trump nominee past and future. Or do you think they would have allowed Kavanaugh through? Of course not, they tried everything to stop him, inside and outside the process. And I know you cheered their efforts.
You're just being massively hypocritical. You want the Dems to block Trump nominees by any means necessary, but if elected Republicans simply use established processes to do the same thing it's "no regard for the constitution".
EDIT: Clarify garland situation, doesn't change the point.
Do you know how laws are often interpreted? It's asking what is the faith and meaning of the law, NOT what is literally written in paper. This means past precedents are incredibly important for defining what a law is. Refusing to hold a vote for a nomination of a qualified supreme court justice is not against the law on paper, but it is against the meaning of the laws and the precedents of how the president interacts with the supreme court.
It is not the senates job to decide if a nominee is worthy of being nominated, or if the president should make a nomination. It is their job to vote on the nominee. They did not do that.
The word you're looking for is 'norms' not 'precedent' (since this wasn't a court case).
And yes, I agree, the norms have gotten way shittier over recent decades. Both sides participated in this, back to the character assassination of Robert Bork, and the dems reneging on their promises around the Reagan migrant amnesty and probably before.
It is hypocritical and childish to put that all on one side.
Merrick was a pretty moderate choice who had been praised by many Republicans. Since they never voted on him, we don’t really know if they would have changed their minds and voted against him.
Time for some history. The GOP senators never expected a moderate like Merrick Garland, who was named by senators in the news before Obama announced his confirmation.
Obama is more of a realist than many in his party. He knew going in that no one would make it through the Senate, and that's why he nominated Garland. Why waste a quality Democrat jurist on a lost cause? I bet he was tempted to nominate Kavanaugh...
I believe the parent comment was mocking the exact stance that Republicans took four years ago, and the fact that they will very certainly not take that stance this time.
True, but we’re talking politics and politicians. Compare Biden before and New Biden on issues. They ALL would do that. There is no real holier than thou politician.
"In the run up" meaning that Scalia died in February 2016, nine months before the election, and the very solemnly contemplative senator from Kentucky announced “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."
It wasn't even in the "run up" to the election - Scalia died in early February. Garland was nominated in mid March. Obama had 10 more months in the Presidency (~23% of his presidency left when Scalia died and McConnell said we shouldn't fill a vacancy in an election year).
Not sure why you are downvoted, this is correct. What the R's did to Merrick Garland was a disgrace. What kind of wink and a nod agreement is that? They should codify this into law, not keep perpetuating it forever. How long until it's 'oh, he's only got 3 more years left...lame duck!'
