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No, the precedent doesn’t apply here. If there were a vacancy tomorrow it would get filled before the election.
She had a non-invasive gall bladder treatment and is participating in oral arguments today.
I''m thinking the same. Who's gonna block it? Democrats? They don't have the votes do they?
Nope.
Don't kid yourself. McConnell and Trump have destroyed precedents left and right. McConnell would skip all hearings, if he could, or limit them, to push anyone through to replace either of the four justices. You're talking about people that do not follow rules that they even set up.
I could see Biden winning the election, and in December, McConnell would push someone through.
I could see them hesitating on something Trump related but I don't think they would drag their feet on appointing a conservative SC judge
That only applies when the majority says so. And don't pretend it would not work both ways.
For a few years...that would just give democrats all the more material to win back the Senate. At some point, the complete and total obstruction that is Mitch McConnell won't have power to do so anymore.
This defense is getting used a lot lately. We have to pretend that Democrats would do the same when Republicans are blatantly hypocritical, because Republicans say so.
It's how they justified delaying Scalia's replacement. The mantra was repeated over and over... "The Democrats would do the same. We are just doing what the Democrats would do." That works until it doesn't work. I guarantee Clinton, Biden, or Sanders, would not be treating Covid like Trump has nor would a Democratic senate treat the Supreme Court like McConnell did/has.
Democrats have sunk to far lower levels to torpedo a nomination....see Bork, see Thomas, see Kavanaugh. The fact that is was the Democratic leadership who first threaten such a tactic during the Bush years pretty much drives the nail in the coffin that Democrats would do exactly the same thing given the circumstances.
Really?
It is within their power to sit on/postpone a nominations and/or reject them. There have been 14 SC judges who have either had their nomination lapse or postponed. Kavanaugh was the first judge to have quotes written in his yearbook scruntinized. Really quite an embarrassment and possibly the all-time low point in SC confirmation process.
I think Clarence Thomas will go down as the last Justice to be confirmed by a majority of the opposite party for a long time
I don't think I claimed anything about it being within their power.
It is a matter of opinion on which is worse. But I am 1000 percent confident the Democrats would have done the exact same thing. That is just a matter of believing the words out of their mouths.
I agree that the whole judge confirmation process has become a 100 percent political cluster. But how do you reset it? It just gets worse and worse every time around. I find it repugnant that people think their side is superior. This is absolutely a case of both sides keep putting gas on the fire.
Perhaps the next time, rank and file needs to demand that their leaders act like grownups. Voters need to demand that their rank-and-file representatives act like grownups. Above all, the leaders need to stop acting like children, and their supporters need to stop cheering them on when they do so.
And I don't really care about speculating what the Democrats would have supposedly done. We have seen others get their day to be discussed and voted on...it was a republican who actually blocked it, no need to speculate...McConnell did this.
There is no need to speculate the garbage that the Democrats have pulled over the years.
Sure there is...because you are literally speculating what the Democrats would do. Over the years, while they had heavy scrutiny, judges were still discussed and voted on as intended.
In my view the only way to fix this problem is a constitutional amendment that ends lifetime tenure for Supreme Court Justices.
I'm in favor. 18-year terms, staggered by 2 years, every POTUS nominates 2 per 4-year term.
I'm come around to this view in a big way in recent years. Our current system has basically evolved to this:
Because he has zero principles.
Democrats would do it too if they had the power. They don't. But I don't believe for a second they wouldn't do the same thing. It's politics. It sucks, but it is how the game is played.
What's even worse is that we've reached the stage where each side's actions can be justified by pointing to the other side's transgressions. Republicans have been "Because Bork"-ing for 30 years now, and I can promise you Democrats will be "Because Garland"-ing for the next 30.
You can use that hypothetical to justify literally anything under the sun, which is exactly what the GOP does.
