I think this supreme court fight will help highlight and bring awareness to how important this presidential election is to the shaping of the supreme court given that 3 of them will be over the age of 84 by the time the next presidential term ends (and of course potentially one vacancy to start). Until now, there hasn't been much talk about this. This will now be a hot topic in the general and hopefully will yield more turnout.
What you just observed is the kind of thing that will unify the presidential contenders in each party. I know it is hard to imagine this now seeing how volatile these debates have been, especially on the republican side. The dems really have a chance to shape the court for the next 30 years if they can win it again.
This isn't much of an issue because Roberts can just order the deadlocked cases to be reheard when the SC has 9 justices.
Liberals again showing their pathetic hypocrisy. From Chuck Schumer, 2007: How do we apply the lessons we learned from Roberts and Alito to be the next nominee, especially if—God forbid—there is another vacancy under this president? … [F]or the rest of this president’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito. Given the track record of this president and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings—with respect to the Supreme Court, at least—I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.
Obama should be getting someone in there ASAP. The Republicans are a bigger threat to America than ISIS. ISIS might kill a few hundred Americans. Republicans screw millions of Americans every day. We don't any more Scalia's on the supreme court.
Texx, Texx... catch up. That has already been posted and discussed. To bring you up to speed... one poster opined that Schumer was wrong in writing that. Another poster noted that McConnell wrote back then that the President, and President alone nominates SC Justices and reinforced the principle that, regardless of party, any President’s judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote. You sure have been slipping lately...
Was supposed to be a graphic of a bunch of people posting that President Obama had Scalia killed... seriously,
How about the pathetic conservative hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell giving a speech to the Senate on CSPAN several years ago regarding how irrelevant the rule is that he is currently using (Thurman Rule) to derail Obama instilling a new justice. Conservatives fail yet again
The fact is no Senator has to ever approve any of the President's nominee in any year of the Presidency, eoection year or not. Senators can always decide based on their own opinions and their electoral calculations. So, I am not gonna yell at McConnell or anyone else too much for this. Not gonna blame Obama for making a nomination, either. The fact is, this country elected a Democratic President and a GOP Senate and both have the power to do what they do. If we dont like this, vote differently in 2016. Right now, many if the GOP Senators are likely worried about primary challenges from within the party if they are insufficiently antagonistic toward an Obama court nominee. Dick Luger got primaried over some Obama judicial nominees, for example. But I wonder if there is a delta between catering to their primary electorates and winning general elections at least in a number of states.
The confirmation process should be as long as a reasonable candidate is nominated, senate should confirm. However, this is no longer how things gets done in Washington, is this how Democracy suppose to work?
They have to give a presidential nominee a vote. To deny one is to admit that they are simply obstructing and playing politics and nothing more.
I can't imagine the play yet, but I'd guess Mr. Obama will set up a maximum troll. The thing with the GOP though is, they worse they look, the better they like it.
I'm looking at the Senate election map and the Republicans have more to defend this election than the Democrats. Given that it is a presidential election year too where Dem turnout has been higher than Repub there is a very real possibility that the GOP loses the Senate. Both Sanders and Clinton are ahead or within the margin of error close in current national polling to leading Repubs so by this time next year there could be both a Dem president and Senate. It seems to me that it might make sense for the GOP to press Obama for a moderate appointment that they would be willing to approve rather than stall it out to next Congress when they might be in a much weaker position. Of course though that might also mean that their base takes it out on them. It's possible that they might hold off until after the GOP convention when there are no more primary challenges and they need to shift to the middle.
Yeah, there is a very real "danger" that GOP obstructs, loses the presidency and the senate, and then gets seriously left-leaning justice. If they cooperate now, they could get a moderate and try to get the presidency, with a few nominations to come in quick order. But the football mentality is like holding 4 fingers in the air with one hand, your helmet with the other hand, and thinking you can win everything. And that is likely what will guide them.
