Tag Archives: US Senate

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Can POTUS interpret Senate silence as ‘consent’?

checks balance

Who is Frederick W. Ford?

Never heard of him? Neither had I until I saw an article posted on LinkedIn. He’s a lawyer and mediator. I guess he’s pretty knowledgeable about constitutional law and related matters.

He has posited a fascinating idea for President Obama to consider.

Let silence be your guide. That’s his notion that the president ought to follow with regard to placing Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court.

The article is attached to this blog post. I encourage you to read it all of it. The crux of his argument is that the Senate has the constitutional duty to “advise and consent” to the nomination of federal judges. But what if the Senate remains silent on the issue? What if senators don’t hold hearings and don’t debate the nomination fully?

Ford said the president can take their silence as a form of tacit “consent.” He lays it out there in a lot legal mumbo-jumbo that, frankly, I don’t get; a lot of it is in Latin and I don’t speak the language.

I get the sense that Ford thinks Obama ought to do it. Just call a swearing-in ceremony and have the man take his oath — and then take his seat on the bench when it reconvenes this October.

Senate Republicans want to wait for the next president to make the appointment.

The current president doesn’t want to wait.

Wouldn’t that simply send the Senate into apoplectic shock if Barack Obama follows the advice offered by someone named Frederick W. Ford?

 

 

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Sen. Moran stands up for integrity

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jerrymoran

I’m now going to salute a Republican member of used to be considered — maybe some folks still think it is — the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Stand up, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas. Take a bow.

You, sir, are standing on a critical principle, which is that Kansans sent you to the Senate to do your job and you are insisting that your senatorial leadership follows your lead.

Good luck with that.

Moran told a town hall gathering earlier this week that he wants the Senate to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is bucking the edict handed down by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who says the Senate should wait until after the election this November to consider an appointment made by the next president of the United States.

Moran, a conservative Republican representing a blood-red Republican state, is in no serious danger of losing his Senate seat this fall. Still, to hear him say that his party’s Senate leader is wrong is, well, uplifting.

Moran isn’t endorsing Garland’s nomination. He told the town hall group that he cannot imagine President Obama ever nominating someone to his liking.

But he said he is obligated to do his job as a U.S. senator.  “I think the process ought to go forward,” he said.

He said it’s better for his constituents to tell him he “voted wrong on nominating  somebody than saying I’m not doing my job.”

Moran joins two other GOP senators

It’s one thing for a senator such as Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire or Mark Kirk of Illinois — who also have called for hearings and a confirmation vote — to say they’ll meet with Garland and want to consider his nomination.

It’s quite another for someone representing a safe Republican state — whose re-election this fall is a virtual certainty — to weigh in on the side of senatorial responsibility.

If only the obstructionist who leads the Senate would follow suit.

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Listen to the VP, senators, about doing your job

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biden

Vice President Joe Biden is going to lecture the U.S. Senate on something about which knows a thing or two.

He wants his former colleagues to do the job they took an oath to do, which is vote on whether to approve a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Biden will deliver his message in remarks at Georgetown University.

At issue is the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia. Senate Republicans — many of them, anyway — are digging in on the nomination. They don’t want to consider a Barack Obama appointment, contending that it’s too late in the president’s second term. He’s a “lame duck,” therefore, the task of appointing a justice should fall on the next president.

That, of course, is pure malarkey.

Barack Obama is president until Jan. 20, 2017. He wants to fulfill his constitutional duty and he’s urging the Senate to do so as well.

Oh sure. The balance of the court is hanging here. Scalia was a devout conservative ideologue — and a brilliant legal scholar. Garland is a judicial moderate; he’s also a scholar; a man viewed widely as supremely qualified.

How does Biden — who served in the Senate for 36 years before being elected vice president — figure in this?

As vice president, he’s the presiding officer of the Senate. Of course, he votes only to break ties. He doesn’t actually run the place. That task falls on the majority leader, who happens to be a Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

It’s been McConnell’s call to obstruct this nomination.

Biden, though, does have a number of friends in both parties who serve in the Senate. Is there any hope that he can get through to them? Probably not, but when you’re vice president of the United States, you have the bully pulpit from which to preach an important message to those who need to hear it.

 

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Who will join Cruz in stopping Trump?

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Ted Cruz has a problem.

He wants to become the “anti-Trump” candidate for president of the United States. He’s seeking a way to get Ohio Gov. John Kasich to bow out. He believes he can coalesce enough “true conservatives” behind him to derail Donald J. Trump’s march to the Republican Party presidential nomination.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas, though, needs some help from his colleagues in the Senate. But as Politico reports, he is nearly universally detested by his fellow senators. And that’s just the Republicans with whom he serves.

Cruz needs to build some relationships. I don’t mean “rebuild.” He’s got to start from scratch.

He’s been in the Senate for slightly more than three years. He’s halfway through his very first term in the very first elected public office he’s ever held.

As Politico reports: “Cruz’s relationship with his colleagues is now a central paradox of his campaign: He’s openly arguing for the party to rally behind him, but Republican senators are plainly wary of going anywhere near him. Those who feel burned by Cruz in the past say he’ll come to them only if he decides it’s in his self-interest. ”

The man who leads the Senate — the body’s top Republican — once was on the receiving end of a barrage that Cruz leveled at him. Remember when the Cruz Missile called Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a “liar” in a speech on the floor of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body?

How does McConnell put that epithet behind him? How does McConnell gather the forces to help one of their own take down this “interloper” named Trump.

Moreover, Sen. John McCain — the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee — has taken Cruz to task in public for his intemperate remarks about a couple of fellow Vietnam War combat veterans, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel.

Finally, he’s been campaigning against the very “Washington establishment” where he works these days. He’s an “outsider,” he says.

Something tells me Cruz’s efforts to put distance between himself and his Senate colleagues ain’t going well with the ladies and gents with whom he serves.

 

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Garland gets nod; let’s act on it, senators

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BBqxe1o

I’ve written already about why I believe President Obama deserves to have his Supreme Court appointment considered by the U.S. Senate.

It’s his prerogative to appoint someone; it’s the Senate’s prerogative to approve or reject it. The Constitution lays it out there. I understand the idea of “advise and consent.”

If senators object, then they should say so on the record. The idea of obstructing a nomination by refusing to consider it is offensive on its face … at least in my view.

The president today nominated D.C. Circuit Court chief judge Merrick Garland to the high court, replacing the late Antonin Scalia.

The politics of this fight overshadows everything else. It overshadows Garland’s impeccable credentials, his immense standing among legal scholars, his compelling personal story.

Scalia was the court’s leading conservative voice. He was an ideologue. Garland is a moderate. He’s known to be a non-ideologue, but according to conservatives, well, that makes him a flaming liberal.

The court’s balance would shift with Garland joining the court.

And that’s why the Senate Republican leadership is vowing to block the nomination by refusing even to consider it. The GOP won’t even allow a hearing. Hell, GOP senators say they won’t even meet with Garland.

The Republican leadership that says it wants the next president to make the appointment.

What happens, though, if the next president happens to be, oh, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Are they then willing to put this selection in the hands of a president who could appoint a true-life flaming liberal? Or should they give Merrick Garland the hearing he deserves and cut their losses?

Garland’s intelligence and legal knowledge are beyond reproach. Even Republicans said as much when they approved his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court. If he’s as smart and scholarly now as he was then, it makes sense — or so it seems — that he’d be a fitting choice for the Supreme Court.

The fight has been joined.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the people should have a say in filling this court seat. Mr. Leader, the people have spoken on it — by re-electing Barack Obama as president of the United States.

 

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Government is not a vacuum-sealed profession

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Ted Cruz knows as well as any of the 100 men and women who work in the U.S. Senate that politicians don’t operate in a vacuum.

The freshman Republican from Texas wants to become president. Were he to stroll into the Oval Office next January, he’ll have a serious issue to resolve.

How is he going to work with the individuals who seem to despise him?

Cruz stands alone in the Senate among those who think highly of him. Or so it appears.

As they say: The president proposes but Congress disposes. The Senate comprises half of the Capitol Building. The overwhelming consensus so far in this presidential campaign has been that Cruz — elected to the Senate in 2012 — has precious few friends and political allies in that body.

So the question persists on my mind: How does this guy expect to get a single thing done while working with a legislative body comprising individuals who can’t stand him?

Presidents don’t work in a vacuum. The most successful of them know how to legislate, know that to get anything done requires them to compromise.

Cruz keeps yapping about never yielding to the other side, never cutting deals, never forsaking his strong conservative principles.

I take that to mean that it’s going to be his way or the highway.

Strange. Isn’t that what Republicans have been saying about President Barack Obama?

 

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Justice Sandoval, anyone?

sandoval

You’ve got to hand it to the White House media machine.

It puts out a report that has Washington all a-flutter, even if it appears to be the longest of long shots.

Or is it?

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is being considered for that coveted spot on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two things about Sandoval make this a remarkable consideration.

One: He is a former U.S. district judge whom the Senate confirmed overwhelmingly.

Two: He is a Republican.

Sandoval being vetted

It’s the second part of Sandoval’s resume that is most intriguing.

GOP senators, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said they won’t consider anyone for the spot that President Obama wants to fill to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

But are they really and truly going to slam the door shut on one of their own Republicans, someone they’ve endorsed already for a lower court post?

Sandoval is reportedly a moderate Republican. That, of course, doesn’t fit the profile desired by so many of the hard-right senators who will have to vote on whomever the president selects.

The chatter already has suggested that the president is going to nominate a centrist. He’ll forgo an ideological battle in order to get someone seated.

Gov. Sandoval is a long way from being nominated, let alone being considered for the job.

It makes me wonder: Is the president trying to stick it in the ear of the folks with whom he’s been fighting throughout his entire presidency?

 

 

 

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It’s all about the court balance

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President Obama picked up the phone today and made a couple of important calls.

One of them went to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; the other went to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley. Both men are Republicans. The president is a Democrat.

The president informed the senators he intends to make a pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. And, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, Sens. McConnell and Grassley both voted in favor of President Reagan’s “lame duck” selection of Anthony Kennedy to join the court in 1988, which was just as much of an election year as 2016.

McConnell, though, says the current president should notpick the next justice. That task belongs to the next president, he said.

What has changed?

It’s the balance of the court. It means everything. Every single thing.

You see, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the man Obama wants to replace, was a conservative stalwart on the court. The president is not a conservative; therefore, his appointee won’t echo the judicial philosophy of Justice Scalia.

The next justice — if he or she is approved by the current Senate before the end of this year — is likely to change the fundamental balance of the court, which has comprised a thin conservative majority.

Senate Republicans don’t want the court balance to change. They’ll do whatever they can to prevent the president from making the pick.

There’s just this one little issue that, by my way of thinking, should matter more than anything else. The Constitution grants the president the authority to make the appointment, which this president said he’s going to do. It also grants the Senate the authority to vote whether to approve or deny the appointment. It doesn’t require the Senate to act.

If the Republican-controlled Senate is going to stymie the president, then it faces a serious charge of obstruction. Senate Republicans keep denying the obstructionist label.

A failure, though, to act in a timely fashion on this appointment gives even the casual observer ample cause to suggest that, by golly, we have just witnessed a case of political obstruction.

If the president selects someone who is eminently qualified and who has a proven record of judicial moderation — which conservatives still will see a serious break with the conservative judicial record built by the late Justice Scalia — then shouldn’t the Senate give that nominee a fair hearing and a timely vote?

I would say “yes.” Without equivocation.

 

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Justice Biden? Maybe?

biden

I’ll toss a name out there for President Obama to consider for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Joseph Biden.

The vice president told Rachel Maddow last night that he has “no interest” in serving on the court. The MSNBC host had asked him directly if he’d consider the appointment if it were offered. He has “no interest.”

Is that a blanket, categorical refusal to serve? No. It isn’t. It means, more or less, the same thing as when a politician says he has “no intention of running” for a particular office.

“No intention” can be parsed to mean that “no intention … at this moment.” So, when a politician says he or she has “no interest” in a particular job, one can possibly suggest that the pol is speaking in the present tense.

Biden predicted that Obama will pick a centrist. He said the president won’t likely pick a flaming liberal jurist in the mold of William Brennan to fill the seat vacated by shocking death of archconservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

He’s also said that a nominee should have GOP support.

Hmmm. Let me think. Who might that be?

Oh, how about the vice president? He’s got many Republican friends in the Senate. He’s proven his ability to work well with GOP lawmakers. He once chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee.

My hunch is that he’d be more of a moderate than a flamer.

OK, he’s also pretty long in the tooth. He might not want to stay in the public eye. The vice president has had a long public service career — and he’s just lost his beloved son, Beau, to cancer. Not only that, the president has given him a task to lead the effort to find a cure for the killer disease.

However, as a fan of the vice president, I happen to think he might be one court candidate who could pass senatorial muster.

 

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Obama, GOP both spoiling for a fight to the finish

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founders

Here’s where we appear to be standing with regard to that vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Obama said today he intends to select an “indisputably qualified” person to fill the seat vacated by the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

U.S. Senate Republicans say they intend to block anyone the president nominates.

Who’s on the right side? In my view, it’s not even close.

The president is right. GOP senators are wrong.

Indeed, it’s looking now as though that no matter who gets the call from the president that he or she is going to face a serious fight.

My hunch now is that Barack Obama welcomes the fight. Why? He will wage it from a position of strength.

He’s got the Constitution on his side.

This appointment could change the makeup of the court, which has a slim conservative majority among its members.

Right there is the crux of Republican obstructionism.

Justice Scalia was the shining light among the conservatives serving on the court. He led what’s been called a “conservative renaissance.” His brilliance was beyond question. So was his commitment to conservative principles.

President Obama has another year left in his term. Some have suggested that if Republicans were to get their way, they effectively would eliminate the fourth year of the president’s term. They oppose — on some made-up principle — the idea of a lame-duck president making an appointment to the Supreme Court. They want the next president to make the call.

Well, as Obama said today, those who claim to adhere to strict constitutional principles are creating them out of thin air. The Constitution says the president should nominate people to the federal bench and that the Senate should vote up or down on those nominations.

Both sides are spoiling for a fight. So, let’s have at it.

Barack Obama is set to throw the first punch when he nominates someone to the highest court in the land.

Go for it, Mr. President.