Any Carper or Coons statements on this shit?
It is official, and it is sickening in its contempt for the office of the President, and the man currently serving in that office.
Has anyone heard any reaction from Carper or Coons?
Key Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee emerged from a closed door meeting in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office Tuesday united in their determination not to consider any nominee to replace Antonin Scalia until the next president takes office.
“Common Cause Delaware wants to thank Sen. Tom Carper and Sen. Chris Coons for calling on their colleagues in the U.S. Senate to fulfill their constitutional duty to consider President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court in a timely manner.”
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/02/22/letters-editor-superintendent-bunting-has-right/80748296/
“calling on” that’s some tough stuff. One step above “meekly suggest” and yet a rung below “asking”
They could run nekkid down Broad Street, Middletown.
Or just shrug, which is a go to, and only rung below “meekly suggest”
By definition, people saying they won’t do something in the future is not “news.” Unless the media thinks it’s news whenever a kid anywhere says “You can’t make me.”
Perhaps. But this shit is unprecedented, anti-constitutional behavior in the extreme. I know that our collective sense of outrage has been dulled by the Republicans sustained attack on decency and decorum, but I would think that this would get a rise out of our delegation that purports to be Democratic in outlook.
Coons says that Obama should nominate, wait for it, a ‘centrist’:
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/02/23/coons-urges-centrist-nominee-supreme-court-vacancy/80797306/
All I can say is that centrist had better be to the left of Anthony Kennedy.
If the President would just compromise harder, the Reublicans will come around.
This refusal is not only reprehensible, it’s foolish.
But it may get worse in coming years:
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/02/23/the-court-packing-of-2025/
It’s not unprecedented and it’s not unconstitutional. The supreme court would probably do better with less anyway. It should be reduced back to its original 6. no more overly divisive verdicts; 4 to 2 would be the clear majority needed, not the brokered 5 to 4. And besides, the court doesn’t implode now when a justice recuses themselves now. But i do get it. This is a wonderful chance for your side to score a major victory by placing a justice.
‘Your side’. As opposed to justices like Scalia and Thomas, plucked from the Federalist Society.
Time for a recess appointment…
A recess appointment would serve no purpose since the appointment would last but a few months. Plus the Senate plans to have pro forma sessions to ensure that there are no recesses. Regardless, the SCOTUS case load will be complete by summer AND even if there were an appointee, a decision must be published for it matter. Effectively that doesn’t leave much time for a new justice to hear arguments, make a decision and have it published before they leave the bench. The bottom line is that a recess appointment would just be for show.
The President is better served sending a nomination of someone who won previously won unanimous approval for a lower court seat. If you want to make Republicans look foolish that’s the way to do it.
Agreed, Dave. A recess appointment switches the narrative from Republican (unprecedented) obstruction to Obama’s (fill in the blank) activism, Kenyanism, socialism, spitting on the Constitution, illegitimate, etc.
We do not want to change the narrative. That gives the GOP cover by refocusing the debate. Make them keep defending their actions (or lack of action). A recess appointment will put us on the defensive and our spectacular press will conveniently forget what brought about a recess appointment and just focus on the appointment and not what led to it.
There is nothing for progressives to fear in an 8 member court at this time. Scalia’s votes were never on our side. The conservative wing of the court has lost one of their three guaranteed votes (Alito and Thomas being the other two). In reality a 4-4 tie affirms a lower court ruling and more often than not would have been a 5-4 vote overturning the lower court. In those few cases where the lower court’s decision was on the conservative side, a 4-4 tie may affirm that decision, but an alive Scalia would have made that affirmation 5-4.
President Obama should nominate a qualified and respected progressive person and use the failure of the Republican-controlled Senate to even have hearings as a political issue in the swing states. The President and the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate should campaign in the swing states and in the states with vulnerable Republican senators (Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania ) and winnable open seats (Florida, Maryland) on the theme of replacing the obstructionist Republican majority that ignores its constitutional duty with Democrats who will work with the new president on issues that matter to the people.
I agree with those who oppose a recess appointment because it will move the focus to Obama’s actions in reinforce the Republican narrative that it is the President who oversteps his constitutional powers.
My apologies, my suggestion wasn’t meant to be serious. Agreed…at this point, while a liberal majority would be better, a 4-4 court is better for us than a 5-4 with Scalia. It’s a lose-lose for Republicans unless they win the election….which we CAN’T let happen. All the more reason the Bernie / Hillary divide must end the minute the thing is decided and one side must wholly support the other.
Just hope our guys don’t blow an opportunity
If there is an opportunity to be blown, you can trust the Democratic Party to find it.
Coons as quoted by TPM:
“Once the president has nominated, I am hopeful what the general public will see is he’s chosen for advice and consent an eminently qualified, obviously confirmable candidate, and that will increase calls for Republicans to abandon an unconstructive posture of complete obstruction and instead at least give a hearing to the president’s nominee,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told TPM. “We are called under the Constitution to give advice and consent. Advice and consent does not consist of putting your hands on your ears and saying, “nah nah nah nah nah, I refuse to listen to you.’”
Carper from the same Article:
“The idea of leaving a seat vacant for a year or maybe longer is something the American people can’t understand: ‘What are you guys doing? What are you thinking?'” Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) told reporters on Capitol Hill.