Tag Archives: advise and consent

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SCOTUS fight drips with irony

I cannot resist commenting on the irony that envelops the upcoming fight over filling the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donald J. Trump is going to nominate someone to fill the seat vacated by the death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia. U.S. Senate Democrats are vowing to fight whoever the new president nominates.

For the record, I’ll stipulate once again that I believe strongly in presidential prerogative on these appointments. I believe the president deserves to select whoever he wants to sit on the highest court; I also believe in the Senate’s “advise and consent” role in deciding whether to approve these nominations.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/senate-supreme-court-fight-mitch-mcconnell-chuck-schumer-233194

But here’s where the irony covers this discussion.

Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s effort to nominate a centrist jurist, Merrick Garland, to the seat after Scalia died. They denied Garland a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They said within hours of Scalia’s death that Obama must not be allowed to fill the seat; that task, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, belonged to the new president.

Senate Republicans denied Barack Obama the opportunity to fulfill his constitutional responsibility. They engaged in a shameless — and shameful — game of politics.

Their response now? Why, they just cannot believe that Democrats might vote en masse against anyone Trump nominates. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vows that Democrats are going to dig in against anyone Trump picks for the court.

Revenge, anyone?

Senate Democrats likely cannot do what Republicans did when they denied Merrick Garland even a hearing to determine whether he should take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Indeed, the court needs a ninth vote to avoid deadlocked decisions. For that matter, the court should have welcomed the ninth justice long ago when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland.

Ahh, the irony is rich. Isn’t it?

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U.S. Supreme Court: a victim of collateral damage

Elections have consequences … as the saying goes.

Nowhere are those consequences more significant, arguably, than on our judicial system. Which brings me to the point. The U.S. Supreme Court has suffered what I would call “collateral damage” from the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.

A nearly perfect jurist, Merrick Garland, waited in the wings for nine months after President Obama nominated him to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Sadly, Garland’s political fate was sealed about an hour after Scalia’s death when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that the Senate would refuse to act on anyone Obama would choose for the nation’s highest court.

It was a shameful, reprehensible display of political gamesmanship and yet McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans had the temerity to accuse the president of playing politics.

McConnell took a huge gamble — and it paid off with Trump’s election this past month as president. Now the new president, a Republican, will get to nominate someone.

The New York Times editorialized Sunday that whoever joins the court will be sitting in a “stolen seat.” The Times, though, offers a pie-in-the-sky suggestion for Trump: He ought to renominate Garland, a brilliant centrist who Republicans once called a “consensus candidate” when he was being considered for the Supreme Court back in 2010.

That won’t happen.

Trump, though, could pick another centrist when the time comes for him to make his selection, the Times suggested. Frankly, I’m not at all confident he’ll do that, either. Indeed, with Trump one is hard-pressed to be able to gauge the ideology tilt of whomever he’ll select, given the president-elect’s own lack of ideological identity.

Scalia was a conservative icon and a man revered by the far right within the Republican Party. His death has put the conservatives’ slim majority on the court in jeopardy. But, hey, it happens from time to time.

President Obama sought to fulfill his constitutional duty by appointing someone to the nation’s highest court. The Senate — led by McConnell and his fellow Republican obstructionists — failed miserably in fulfilling their own duty by giving a highly qualified court nominee the full hearing he deserved.

Now we will get to see just how consequential the 2016 presidential election is on our nation’s triple-tiered system of government.

Will the new president administer some kind of conservative “litmus test” to whomever he chooses? Or will he look for someone who — like Judge Merrick Garland — has exhibited the kind of judicial temperament needed on the highest court in America?

I fear the worst.

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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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Conservatives dig in against Obama appointments

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U.S. Senate Republicans had better hope that the nine men and women who comprise the U.S. Supreme Court are still on the job when President Obama checks out of the White House.

Politico is reporting that conservative lawmakers are set to all but block future presidential appointments for the remainder of Obama’s term.

Why am I not surprised?

They’ve been holding up presidential appointments all along, so it doesn’t come as any shock that they’d lay down that marker.

I keep coming back to the highest court in the land.

The president already has selected two members of that court — Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. It still has a narrow conservative majority, but some of the conservatives on the court — as well as some of the liberals — are getting a bit long in the tooth. Don’t misunderstand me here. I do not wish ill on any of them.

But suppose the president must make an appointment . . .

That’s just a single example of how the legislative branch can gum up the process that allows the president to make these critical selections.

I totally understand that the Constitution gives the Senate the power to “consent” to such appointments. I honor that provision. However, as one who long has stood behind the principle of presidential prerogative, I believe the “advise and consent” constitutional clause can be abused.

If Senate conservatives are merely intending to stick it in the president’s ear just because they can, well, that’s not in keeping with the concept of good government . . .  in my humble view.

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McConnell pledges more judicial gridlock

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell laid it out there.

Talking to conservative radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, McConnell said the Senate “likely” won’t approve any more high-level circuit court or Supreme Court judges during the Obama administration.

So … if I understand it correctly, if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs, say, in the next 24 hours — and it can happen, given the ages of some of the court’s senior justices — the Senate won’t confirm anyone appointed by President Obama, even though Obama has another 18 months to go before he leaves office.

That’s what the Kentucky Republican senator said, right?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244107-mcconnell-highly-likely-senate-wont-appoint-new-judges-for

I surely understand the politics of these appointments. The highest court in America comprises a slim conservative majority. Should one of the court’s conservative justices suddenly no longer be on the court, that would send the Republican majority in the Senate into sheer apoplexy. GOP senators would go ballistic at the knowledge that the “socialist/Marxist/terrorist-appeaser” president would be empowered to appoint a justice who would swing the balance of power on the court.

And oh yes, the reverse would be true if we had a conservative president appointing a justice who then might have to face confirmation by a Democratic-majority Senate.

But that’s what we have.

McConnell seemed to offer himself some cover in his radio interview by noting the “bipartisan” votes the Senate has had and the bills it has approved with bipartisan majorities. So, it’s OK then to stall these appointments because, as McConnell said, the Senate is up and running like a well-oiled machine.

What a crock!

It’s fair to remind everyone — the Senate majority leader included — that Barack Obama has been elected twice by clear majorities of American voters. Part of the president’s authority rests with his ability to appoint federal judges with whom he feels comfortable. It’s in the Constitution. He can do that!

Yes, the Constitution also gives the Senate the power to “advise and consent” to the appointments. But is it truly within the Senate’s purview to obstruct qualified jurists to these posts purely on political grounds, because senators can’t stomach the notion of the high court comprising judges with whom they are uncomfortable?

Before you accuse me of being a partisan hack, I’ve noted this very thing when we’ve had GOP presidents’ high court appointments stymied by Democrats employing the same logic in seeking to block qualified judicial appointees.

I happen to be a strong believer in “presidential prerogative,” and that belief swings in both directions.

Welcome back, gridlock.