This post is about the legislative shenanigans currently
going on with regards to the confirmation of a judge to the Supreme Court of
the United States .
I keep thinking that the Trump administration has sunk so low with their
blatant lies and hypocrisy that nothing they could do would surprise me. I
continue, however, to be shocked and amazed by the gall of these liars. Today,
White House press secretary said this with regards to the senate confirmation
of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
“And I think Democrats are setting a very dangerous
precedent when it comes to how they want to do this, because this isn’t about
voting against somebody or having an issue with them. It is literally trying to
stop using the filibuster for something it has never been intended for, nor has
it ever really been the principle that we would vote down somebody who is
qualified.”
Wow. Just wow. I’m sure the internet and media outlets are
going to be all over this, but I don’t care; I’m throwing in too. It was the
republican use of filibuster to block nominees and legislature during the Obama
administration that was unprecedented. They used this method hundreds of times,
more than twice the number of times than during any other administration ever.
It was used so much that the Senate changed the rules to disallow a filibuster
on presidential nominees with the exception of the Supreme Court. To be fair,
there are some semantics around what constitutes as a filibuster versus a
cloture vote, and different people count the tally differently. That said, I
don’t think it’s far-fetched to say twice as much. According to the Senate’s
website cloture was invoked 352 times during President Obama’s two terms. In
contrast cloture was only invokes 141 times during President Bush’s two terms
and a measly 69 times during President Clinton’s two terms.
During President Obama’s two terms there were three Supreme
Court vacancies. His first nominee Justice Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by a
wide, filibuster proof majority of 68 votes. There were threats of
filibustering, and there were threats of changing the rules to disallow
filibusters then too. In the end there wasn’t enough support for a filibuster. His
next nominee was Justice Elena Kagan. A handful of republicans got on board
with her as well and created a filibuster proof majority of 63. So, while it is
technically true, that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees were not
filibustered, that was more a function of not having the votes than it was some
moral aversion to using the filibuster.
What about the third vacancy of the Supreme Court during
President Obama’s tenure in office? This was the vacancy left by the death of
Justice Antonin Scalia. This is a guy who equated homosexuality with bestiality
and murder; yeah, murder. He defended the death penalty because if you are a
Christian then death isn’t that big of a deal. You want to read some crazy
shit? Look up some of Justice Scalia’s dissents. He was a real medieval sort of
thinker; a real conservative hero. And, the republicans were not going to go
quietly this time.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell immediately decried
that with slightly less than a year left in President Obama’s second term no
Supreme Court nominee would even be considered. No need to vote, no need to
filibuster, we will just not do our job at all and the vacancy will remain.
Nothing like this had ever been done before. If anyone was still not sure that
republicans were using unprecedented tactics to obstruct the government from
even functioning, this should have been your wake up call. President Obama
countered by nominating Merrick Garland. During the previous Supreme Court
vacancy republicans explicitly suggested Merrick Garland as a “consensus nominee” that there
would be “no question” that he would be confirmed. Still, republicans refused
to take any action.
It is appalling to me that the unprecedented, egregious republican
tactics will probably work. The democrat’s potential filibuster of Neil Gorsuch
is not unprecedented. Rather, the new precedent set by republicans during the
Obama administration. That precedent is for one party to use any technicality
possible to obstruct the opposition party from effectively governing. Then find
some way to rationalize your actions or inaction.
It is my opinion that every democrat should use any tactic,
or technicality possible to block any Supreme Court nominee until Merrick
Garland is confirmed. Any republican with integrity should stand with them and admit
that the refusal to consider Merrick Garland amounted to nothing less than a shirking
of responsibility and an abuse of power. Confirming Merrick Garland will be the
best way to begin to roll back this dangerous precedent that developed during
the Obama years and culminated in the absolute refusal of the Senate to meet
their constitutional obligations.
I even have a few suggestions for rationalizing the actions:
“We will consider President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme
Court when President Trump has a Supreme Court vacancy. Right now we should be
focused on filling President Obama’s vacancy with President Obama’s nominee.”
I’ll indulge in a little speculation with this one:
“The American People deserve to have their Senate confirm a
Supreme Court justice nominated by a President who is not under investigation
by the FBI for colluding with a foreign nation to commit election fraud.”
This one will hurt a little bit for some of you:
“We should wait to confirm a Supreme Court nominee until we
have a president who won the popular vote.”
And this one is just sort of funny (maybe):
“A Supreme Court vacancy should not be filled during the
last year of a president’s term.”
