Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote: 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?

Why do you make the assumption that Democrats would take the Senate this election cycle?  Let's assume the opposite, which perhaps is even more likely: Trump is elected and the Republicans preserve their Senate majority.  Why wouldn't the Republicans appoint someone like Scalia in this scenario?  If you're assuming that a Senate majority will handed to the Democrats due to media pressure, what of Trump ( and even Cruz's ) ability to break the fourth wall, e.g., redirect the focus back on media's partisan narrative.  It could be argued that much of Trump's appeal up to this point has been due to his contempt of media chicanery; the public certainly hasn't allowed the pundit class consensus to torpedo his campaign up this point.

Pointedstick wrote: Once that breaks down, each side has an enormous amount of power to make life miserable for their opponents.

And this is as it has always been.  America hasn't entered an Era-of-Good-Feelings since the brief hyper-patriotism of the early Bush years, and frankly, such bipartisanship was disastrous.  See the Patriot Act, Gulf War II, the and the rise of a nationwide Bill O'Reillyesque demagogue-enforced consensus between Left and Right.

Republicans have the power in Senate to tilt or balance the Supreme Court and they might at least attempt to make the will of their constituents heard, media pressure or no.  Sounds like representation to me.

I don't assume that the Democrats take the senate. It was just a hypothetical. I think it's likely that Trump wins the presidency and Republicans keep the senate. Throwing out principles, this is all tactical. Confirming Merrick is risk mitigation in case Hillary wins, because they can't and won't block her likely-much-worse nominees for 8 years, or in case Democrats win back the senate (unlikely IMHO, but possible) and blocks Trump's nominees or rubber-stamps someone out of Hillary's wet dreams. Of course if Trump wins and Republicans keep the senate, there's an opportunity to do much better.

You gotta ask yourself: Do you feel lucky, punk?

Pointedstick wrote:C
I don't assume that the Democrats take the senate. It was just a hypothetical. I think it's likely that Trump wins the presidency and Republicans keep the senate. Throwing out principles, this is all tactical. Confirming Merrick is risk mitigation in case Hillary wins, because they can't and won't block her likely-much-worse nominees for 8 years, or in case Democrats win back the senate (unlikely IMHO, but possible) and blocks Trump's nominees or rubber-stamps someone out of Hillary's wet dreams. Of course if Trump wins and Republicans keep the senate, there's an opportunity to do much better.

The above takes as granted that Garland is in fact a "moderate" ( the question of "from whose perspective?" might be applicable here ).  The identical labeling of "moderate" was given to Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, both of which turned out to be garden fare radical progressives, as was obvious to anyone relying physiognomy rather than editorialist gesticulating.  John Roberts, too, was widely claimed by the press to be a "conservative" before his nomination and yet turned out to have cast the critical vote which passed President Obama's ACA.  If we're going to remove principles and rely solely on tactics, we might examine our intelligence sources.  Nominating Garland would not be a mitigation if the media is, yet again, dishonest in its labeling of him.  The fact that news of Garland's appointment is scarcely a day old and people are in a rage to nominate him as a "moderate" compromise points to a misplaced trust in the media, IHMO.

Pointedstick wrote: You gotta ask yourself: Do you feel lucky, punk?

Sure.  Luck of the draw.  I'm waiting to see a few more cards on the table before calling.

Check Garland's history and rulings.

Roberts' vote on the ACA was surprising, for sure.  But it didn't "pass the ACA", the ACA had passed legislatively, and Roberts' vote just allowed the individual mandate.

Also, the court stopped the federal government from requiring that states expand Medicaid, which was a significant part of the ACA.

The only question for the Republicans should be whether they think they will do better by refusing to consider Garland.

From a purely political perspective, I don't think they are going to do better than Garland when it is all said and done.

My point isn't ideological.  It's just my reading the politics of the situation.

As I said above, though, we will be able to easily tell whether the Republicans' strategy was a good one when it's all said and done.

We'll be able to tell whether it worked or not, yes.  But I don't think you can determine whether or not a strategy is sound by a single result.

Xan wrote: We'll be able to tell whether it worked or not, yes.  But I don't think you can determine whether or not a strategy is sound by a single result.

I'm not sure what you mean.

The strategy the Republicans are using is tailored specifically to to this situation.

I believe that the longest the Senate has ever taken to start the hearing process on a Supreme Court nominee has been four months.  The Republicans' strategy for the current vacancy basically calls for a 12 month+ delay between the vacancy and the beginning of confirmation hearings.

The ball I'm trying to keep my eye on is the precedent that all of this is going to set.  I feel like the Senate is on thin ice with its whole argument that the sitting President shouldnt' be allowed to nominate a Supreme Court Justice in the final year of his administration.  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though I certainly understand why they're doing it.

Note that I would feel exactly the same way if it were a Republican President and a Democratic Senate.

For the sake of argument, let's say that there's a 90% chance that Trump wins and that he nominates someone much, much better in the Senate Republicans' eyes.  The correct strategy would be to hold off and wait for that.

But it's still possible that the 10% odds are what happens.  In that case, the outcome is bad.  But the strategy wasn't.

(I don't think those are the real percentages, but this illustrates my point about evaluating strategies.)

Either way, it makes sense to hold off and wait a few months to see how the election winds are blowing.  The only trick there is the messaging.  I prefer to take the course of "we're absolutely evaluating him, but it will take time".

Tyler wrote: Either way, it makes sense to hold off and wait a few months to see how the election winds are blowing.  The only trick there is the messaging.  I prefer to take the course of "we're absolutely evaluating him, but it will take time".

Agreed with you and jafs on that one.  I don't know why they have to come out and say that they're obstructing when they could just drag their feet.

Tyler wrote: Either way, it makes sense to hold off and wait a few months to see how the election winds are blowing.  The only trick there is the messaging.  I prefer to take the course of "we're absolutely evaluating him, but it will take time".

I think that with the way the Senate Republicans have set things up, they really can't take even one step toward holding hearings at this point without looking weak.

I think they were assuming Obama was going to nominate someone more liberal and younger.

Don't underestimate the age thing.  Considering Garland's age, this is really more like half a nominee for Obama, which is also an implicit compromise on his part.