The Senate Ought to Confirm Obama's Nominee

[MediumTex]

Obama's nominee appears to be much more moderate than anyone Hillary would nominate (or that Obama would nominate if he had more political capital right now).

If the Senate rejects this guy, they are betting that (1) Trump is going to win, and (2) Trump isn't going to come up with some kind of screwball nominee like a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission that he's known since he was a kid.

Knowing everything I know today, if I were a Senate Republican I would say let's confirm Obama's guy and move on.  Waiting until after the election is too risky, and it's also not fair to the court to have them waste the first half of their next term waiting for a new justice to be confirmed.

I'm sort of astonished that Obama came up with a straight white guy for a nominee.  I was starting to think that there wouldn't be any more white male heterosexuals added to the court.

[MWKXJ]

I'm sort of astonished that Obama came up with a straight white guy for a nominee.  I was starting to think that there wouldn't be any more white male heterosexuals added to the court.

There's a little more to today's ethnic/gender/sexual orientation circus than "straight and male".  Merrick Garland would be the fourth Jewish appointee of the serving Supreme Court Justices, with the remainder being Catholic.  This is completely out of step with the nation's demographics.  As every other ethnicity relentlessly pushes for at least proportional representation in employment, entitlements, and government appointments, WASPs, too, should assert their influence now to get at least one of their guys on the panel.  If it means needing to fight Obama now and Hillary later ...at least they fought.

[Pointedstick]

I was surprised too. Tactically, the Republicans should confirm him, especially since they have doubts about whether or not Trump could be trusted to nominate people they would like. I'm sure he has plenty of views they don't like, but, well, elections matter. Obama won two of them.

[Ad Orientem]

Obama's nominee appears to be much more moderate than anyone Hillary would nominate (or that Obama would nominate if he had more political capital right now).

If the Senate rejects this guy, they are betting that (1) Trump is going to win, and (2) Trump isn't going to come up with some kind of screwball nominee like a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission that he's known since he was a kid.

Knowing everything I know today, if I were a Senate Republican I would say let's confirm Obama's guy and move on.  Waiting until after the election is too risky, and it's also not fair to the court to have them waste the first half of their next term waiting for a new justice to be confirmed.

I'm sort of astonished that Obama came up with a straight white guy for a nominee.  I was starting to think that there wouldn't be any more white male heterosexuals added to the court.

+1

I will just add that betting on Trump in the general election is a high risk move. If he loses badly he could take the Senate with him. This is probably the very best SCOTUS nominee we could hope for from a Democratic administration.

Unfortunately, I think this is also the year the GOP has decided to bet the house on red 21 at the political roulette wheel. I am a student of history and cannot recall any instance when a political party entered an election year with such strength in candidates and a general hostility to the ruling party... and then threw it all away by nominating the only man who probably cannot win the presumptive nominee of the other party. The mind reels.

My gut says that history will record 2016 as the year the GOP self destructed, throwing away the White House, the Senate and the Supreme Court. If I were a liberal Democrat I would be lighting candles in church every Sunday for the continued health of Donald J. Trump.

[MediumTex]

I was surprised too. Tactically, the Republicans should confirm him, especially since they have doubts about whether or not Trump could be trusted to nominate people they would like. I'm sure he has plenty of views they don't like, but, well, elections matter. Obama won two of them.

Garland's age and moderate views reflect a pretty good compromise on Obama's part.

He's obviously not going to be Scalia, but he looks like he would be a good Justice.

I would much rather have him than whatever transgender bisexual mixed ethnicity jurist Hillary might dig up once elected.

In retrospect, it's a bit surprising that people like O'Connor or Souter could have ever wound up on the court.  These days, it seems like each party just wants to nominate ideological "bench zombies" like Thomas, Alito, Kagan and Sotomayor whose votes on every case can be predicted before a case is even argued.

[MediumTex]

Obama's nominee appears to be much more moderate than anyone Hillary would nominate (or that Obama would nominate if he had more political capital right now).

If the Senate rejects this guy, they are betting that (1) Trump is going to win, and (2) Trump isn't going to come up with some kind of screwball nominee like a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission that he's known since he was a kid.

Knowing everything I know today, if I were a Senate Republican I would say let's confirm Obama's guy and move on.  Waiting until after the election is too risky, and it's also not fair to the court to have them waste the first half of their next term waiting for a new justice to be confirmed.

I'm sort of astonished that Obama came up with a straight white guy for a nominee.  I was starting to think that there wouldn't be any more white male heterosexuals added to the court.

+1

I will just add that betting on Trump in the general election is a high risk move. If he loses badly he could take the Senate with him. This is probably the very best SCOTUS nominee we could hope for from a Democratic administration.

Unfortunately, I think this is also the year the GOP has decided to bet the house on red 21 at the political roulette wheel. I am a student of history and cannot recall any instance when a political party entered an election year with such strength in candidates and a general hostility to the ruling party... and then threw it all away by nominating the only man who probably cannot win the presumptive nominee of the other party. The mind reels.

My gut says that history will record 2016 as the year the GOP self destructed, throwing away the White House, the Senate and the Supreme Court. If I were a liberal Democrat I would be lighting candles in church every Sunday for the continued health of Donald J. Trump.

The GOP threw away the White House in 1992 as well by not finding some way to keep Ross Perot out of the race.  They didn't take Perot seriously then like they're not taking Trump seriously now.

It's the most stupid kind of arrogance.  It costs faces their noses.

[Benko]

Simple question.  Given his record why would he nominate a moderate?  What does he gain? 

[Ad Orientem]

Simple question.  Given his record why would he nominate a moderate?  What does he gain?

He will be moving the Supreme Court leftward. Scalia is probably irreplaceable. Almost anyone is going to be at least a little to the left of him.

[Pointedstick]

Simple question.  Given his record why would he nominate a moderate?  What does he gain?

The more moderate and reasonable Obama's nominee is, the more leverage he has in getting the Republicans in the senate to confirm him, because they have fewer reasons for not doing so that make any sense at all. If he'd nominated the David Bowie of judges, they could just say, "haha, this is why we decided to stonewall you!" But blocking somebody like Garland just makes them look like petulant, hyper-partisan assholes.

I agree with Ad Orientem that 2016 is likely to be the end of the Republican party in its current form. I don't think the party will disintegrate like the Whigs did, but the GOP of 2020 will look radically different from the GOP of 2015.

[I Shrugged]

If they don't at least vote on him, this will be "government shutdown" all over again.  They are so Republican.  You can always count on them to play the hand poorly.

[jafs]

It's a really dumb move to try to obstruct even holding the confirmation hearings - it gets them nothing but bad publicity.

I really don't understand it at all.  Why not just hold the hearings and not confirm the justice, if you have the votes to do that?

[Tyler]

Garland's age and moderate views reflect a pretty good compromise on Obama's part.

He's obviously not going to be Scalia, but he looks like he would be a good Justice.

Agreed.  Garland seems like a highly qualified nominee who is reasonably moderate and not an obvious ideologue.  I know everyone has been braced for war, but all things considered he seems like a pretty good pick.  You can believe Obama is working some crazy three-dimensional chess in an election season to screw the GOP and respond by waging political war on principle... or you can just be thankful he took a reasonable approach and move on. 

[MediumTex]

It's a really dumb move to try to obstruct even holding the confirmation hearings - it gets them nothing but bad publicity.

I really don't understand it at all.  Why not just hold the hearings and not confirm the justice, if you have the votes to do that?

The Senate Republicans don't respect Obama, and they want to do anything they can to humiliate him or otherwise make his last year in office ineffective.

There is, however, an art to quitting while you are ahead, and to me Garland is an obvious win for the Sentate Republicans.  It will be fascinating to see how Garland compares to the eventual confirmed nominee (assuming it's not Garland).  The winners and losers in this gamble will be VERY obvious when it's said and done. 

I would take Garland every time over a hypotethetical Hillary OR Trump nominee.  I don't know why the Senate Republicans are assuming that a Trump nominee would be preferable to Garland.  Are they that sure that Trump would nominate a Scalia-like Justice?  I'm not at all.

I can see Trump nominating someone goofy like Vince McMahon or Mark Cuban or someone like that.

[jafs]

That could be.

But, to me, it makes them look bad, not him.  And, I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way.

Also, of course, trying to block the nominee from even coming to a vote to make the president look bad is a sign of how toxic politics has become, and absurd.

[Mountaineer]

Interesting perspective - cojohes needed however. 

http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/17/the ... e-instead/

"Republicans should stop being reactive in the face of the progressive Democratic Party for a change and instead take a page out of Mike Tyson’s playbook and punch the Left in the mouth first.

Politics and ideology dictate that the time is ripe for the GOP to turn the table on the Democrats and use their advisory prerogative under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution to do something bold, even if only symbolic: Push for the appointment of Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the Supreme Court. While the president is singularly responsible for appointing Supreme Court justices, nothing precludes the Senate from using its advisory power to suggest its own favored nominees.

Now, I hold no illusions that President Obama would ever seriously consider Judge Brown’s nomination, in spite of her eminent qualification as a sitting judge on the second-highest court in the land, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. But on several grounds the public case should be advanced anyway."

... M

[Benko]

trying to block the nominee from even coming to a vote to make the president look bad is a sign of how toxic politics has become, and absurd.

Ignoring the thread topic, but replying to this comment: "how toxic politics has become"

You are aware that both Biden and Obama did similar things? The left plays by bareknuckle rules and up till now (i.e. Trump) R's were  too docile to put up a fight.  And when the R's play by rules the left has created, it is politics is toxic and absurd.

[jafs]

When I last checked, Biden said something about blocking a nominee, but in fact the D didn't actually do it.

There's a difference between those, isn't there?

And, do you know how much more the R have used the filibuster during Obama's presidency than has ever been used before, many times on what would normally be routine appointments?  According to politifact, there were 68 nominees blocked before Obama, and 79 during his term (that was in 2013, so the number is probably higher now).  They went back to 1949, so that means that more presidential nominees have been blocked in Obama's term than in about 60 years of presidents before him.

What Obama action are you referring to?  I'll look it up.

[Benko]

"President Obama “regrets” filibustering the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in 2006, "
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... rt-nominee

I'll be he regrets, and if you like your insurance plan...

Remember Bork(supreme court nominee)?  Was there precedent for that?

[Benko]

8. Joe Biden wrote the playbook for how to “bork” a Supreme Court nominee, a descriptive verb that now means to publicly pillory a nominee’s reputation to make it politically difficult for senators to vote for them. It’s named, of course, after what Democrats did to Robert Bork.

Then-Senator Biden was the chair of the judiciary committee, and he put together what’s now been deemed a “Biden report,” a document detailing Bork’s judicial history and personal background. The judiciary committee voted against Bork’s confirmation by a vote of 9-5

10-times-democrats-vowed-to-block-republican-nominees/

http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/16/10- ... -nominees/

[jafs]

Thanks - I looked it up.

The difference between what the R are doing right now, and that example, is that R have a majority, not a minority, and almost certainly the votes to simply deny the confirmation of any nominee.

And, they seem to be refusing to even hold confirmation hearings at all.

That seems very different to me from a minority attempting to use a filibuster during actual hearings.  The filibuster is designed, as I understand it, to help a minority party have some power, which makes some sense to me.  It doesn't make any sense to me for a majority to refuse to hold hearings they could simply use to deny an appointment.

Also, Alito is widely understood to be one of the court's most conservative justices, while Obama's selection seems much more moderate.

Having said that, it's certainly true that politics has been unpleasant for a long time - it's just more unpleasant now.

[Mountaineer]

Take a ride on the wild side.  Check out some of those articles. 

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/tag/scotus-nominees

... M

[MWKXJ]

I find it odd that many of the Trump supporters on this forum are in favor of appointing a Supreme Court nominee, who, if nominated, will more than likely fight Trump on several of his signature issues: a border wall, a temporary ban on Islamic refugees, and a re-examination of birthright citizenship.  Why support a candidate, and then turn around and support a justice which will undermine said candidate?

[Pointedstick]

I find it odd that many of the Trump supporters on this forum are in favor of appointing a Supreme Court nominee, who, if nominated, will more than likely fight Trump on several of his signature issues: a border wall, a temporary ban on Islamic refugees, and a re-examination of birthright citizenship.  Why support a candidate, and then turn around and support a justice which will undermine said candidate?

Is Obama likely to withdraw him and nominate someone who wouldn't?

[MWKXJ]

I find it odd that many of the Trump supporters on this forum are in favor of appointing a Supreme Court nominee, who, if nominated, will more than likely fight Trump on several of his signature issues: a border wall, a temporary ban on Islamic refugees, and a re-examination of birthright citizenship.  Why support a candidate, and then turn around and support a justice which will undermine said candidate?

Is Obama likely to withdraw him and nominate someone who wouldn't?

Not likely.  However, after several of President Obama's proposed candidates--who are on their face unacceptable to the majority of Republicans in the Senate--are rejected, Obama will possibly realize he's running out of time and make further concessions.  It's not as if Democrats haven't played this game as recently as the Bush Administration.

Garland's positions on gun control alone should alone disqualify him from consideration by Second Amendment conservatives, particularly as he's slated to replace Scalia.  And, again, the fact that Garland will make Trump's nationalist policies impossible to put into into motion should give pause to the electorate the Senate is accountable to.

Garland, despite the mainstream punditry's aggressive shilling, is not a sweetheart deal for Republicans.

[Pointedstick]

It's obvious that in the current climate and level of polarization, Republicans are never going to like a Democratic supreme court nominee, and the reverse is true too. However, despite this, Republicans confirmed Sotomayor and Kagan, and Democrats confirmed Roberts and Alito. Obama just isn't going to nominate a Scalia II. It's simply not going to happen no matter how long the Republicans hold their breath. And if they do, let's say Trump wins, the Democrats take the senate, and Ginsburg kicks the bucket. Why wouldn't the newly-empowered senate Democrats pull the same stunt and demand a nominee to the left of Vladimir Lenin?

There's a certain amount of prisoner's dilemma calculation going on here because a lot of conservative-minded people perceive that the Democrats will behave that way no matter what the Republicans do now, so they may as well do it, but that's an opinion, not a fact. It highlights how much of the functioning of the American political system is because of a shared political culture amongst the members of legislative branch in particular. Once that breaks down, each side has an enormous amount of power to make life miserable for their opponents.