I used to be a consultant at Democracy for America and Murshed used to be one of my favorite Netroots Nation drinking buddies back when he was working for Harry Reid. I’m utterly bored by DFA’s reaction here, but Murshed makes sense.
“It’s deeply disappointing that President Obama failed to use this opportunity to add the voice of another progressive woman of color to the Supreme Court, and instead put forward a nominee seemingly designed to appease intransigent Republicans rather than inspire the grassroots he’ll need to get that nominee through the Senate gauntlet,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America.
“Judge Garland’s background does not suggest he will be a progressive champion and he is not the justice a conservative Republican would have nominated, but it is Pres. Obama’s Constitutional duty to nominate Supreme Court justices, and he is clearly qualified,” CREDO Political Director Murshed Zaheed said in a statement.
I just have to laugh out loud at the idea that DFA’s members were going to get a liberal nominee through “the Senate gauntlet.” Murshed, on the other hand, is dealing with reality. As long as the Republicans have at least 40 members in the Senate, and that is going to be the case until at least 2019, the Republicans will have effective veto power over any nominee.
It’s only the defeatists who don’t think that the president can get anyone confirmed who thought this pick should be selected to maximize turnout. As it stands, if the Democrats win the presidential election, the Republicans will run tripping over each other to confirm Garland in the lame duck. But they’re going to pay a brutal price for waiting that long because they have absolutely no argument against Garland on the merits.
I watched Fox News for half an hour after the announcement, and the majority of the people on there were saying that Garland was a good justice who should be confirmed and that the president had outfoxed (sic) the Republican leadership again. They pointed out that the public is totally against this obstructionist position that the Senate Republicans are taking, and they thought that Clinton will probably nominate someone much younger and less moderate if Garland isn’t approved.
The truth is, Garland will get confirmed no later than the lame duck and (if not) that Clinton would probably re-appoint him simply out of respect if nothing else.
He’ll be a perfectly fine Justice, and he’s a reasonable compromise choice considering that the Republicans do have enough power to have a say in who will sit on the Court.
Also, he doesn’t have to be a “progressive champion” to be the fifth vote in a liberal majority that will begin reversing two decades of conservative destruction on the High Court.
I wish some people could just relax once in a while.
It’s been interesting seeing the reaction on my non-political social media accounts. (I feel like a spy there sometimes!) People say things like, “I’m not political, but” or “I don’t usually post political things, but” and then they go on to say that this guy is qualified and should be given a hearing. I was surprised to see my editor chime in, with “He’s a moderate! I’m a moderate, and I want someone to represent me.” Again, these people normally don’t comment about politics.
One person has been tweeting today about the nomination and what an outrage it is that he hasn’t been given a vote. She’s got 15k followers who probably aren’t political either. Those of us who live in the political bubble forget sometimes that there are others who don’t share our obsessions but will rally to a cause as they see fit, and I suspect that’s exactly what Obama was counting on.
Anyway, just wanted to share what I’ve been seeing.
Not surprised by their not well-informed opinion. Did appreciate that once the issue of the GOP not granting hearing pierced the consciousness of the general public enough for a solid majority to have an opinion and not surprisingly that it was thumbs down for the GOP. Am slightly surprised that many have chosen to continue following the issue, but their thumbs up for Garland was almost as easily predictable as their thumbs down for Senate GOP intransigence.
There’s a social aspect to the court as well. The arguments over the Texas abortion case made it clear that Scalia (who was bright, outspoken, and witty, for all his vile views) was the lynchpin of conservative persuasion on the court. The publicly articulate ones are mostly the women at this point, and they’re all liberal. If there’s a fifth mostly-liberal justice then there will be powerful pressure on Roberts and Kennedy to slide to the left, because that’s where the good arguments they hear will be coming from, and that’s where they will need to vote to control who gets to write opinions (else it’s Ginsburg). If they vote with and listen to the liberals, they will become more liberal themselves, and after a while we may see one of them bail out the country on some issue Garland swings conservative on.
I dunno, I think Thomas is going to try to talk now that he can’t outsource his job to Scalia. I don’t have a particularly high opinion of his reasoning (I laughed at loud at his anti-affirmative action analogies) but we’ll see how it turns out.
Question: Why does the senate need 60 votes to get anyone elected or a bill passed? Is that a law or can it be broken?
Explainer.
But whatever senate rules currently exist, like 60 votes, can be changed to a simple majority, yes?
Sure. Except a major rule change can be filibustered.
The difficulty is that whichever party is in the minority likes and uses the filibuster. The majority party doesn’t like it. But as the majority party could become the minority party after the next election, they don’t want to do anything rash.
I was reading wiki on the nuclear option, and your last sentence seems to be the crux of it. So far as I know there is nothing in the constitution preventing it. But that gets me to wondering if there are circumstances where breaking the 60 vote rule matters like when Reid did it in recent times for court nominees. If you really want something, like the judicial appointees or say that public option or Medicare for all, you may need to take extraordinary measures.
A major rule change require two thirds. But apparently you can get around it just like Reid did. Anyway the issue is still open for me. And to your point if Trump is elected will the republicans use it to reverse Obamacare?
Just rules of the Senate club. Perfectly Constitutional as both houses of Congress are authorized in the Constitution to establish their own operating rules. Not unique to the US or Senate or new when adopted. The rules for filibustering have been changed at various times. (No Jimmy Stewart filibusters anymore.)
Sure wish there had been 40 Senators to block GWB’s mad Iraq War, but maybe it’s never been used to slow down or stop a really bad big idea.
War has a way of bringing most everyone on board. There’s a tendency to rally around the flag. I say that not as an excuse. I’ll never forgive Hillary Clinton, even though I support her nomination, for casting that damn Iraq war vote. How many lives could have been saved in the Congress had exercised just a tiny bit of independent judgment.
The filibuster has been useful before. It’s the reason Bush’s tax cuts weren’t permanent and the Obama was able to partially roll them back. But it’s certainly true it’s used for ill much more often than it’s used for good.
If there is a party that simply does not want to govern, the 60 vote rule is very convenient. Nothing will get done. So too if you just want to be a piss ant until you get your way – it may be useful. I get that works both ways. But somehow I always feel I’m on the losing side of the vote. If your party is always trying to pass new legislation, it could be tough without 60 senators on your side. In the end I believe Obamacare passed with reconciliation since they only had 59 votes.
And I really do wonder why we need protection from our elected representatives. Apparently as Reid showed us, you can change it with just a majority. Imagine that. Do you think anyone would actually do that for harm?
For a background on the sliver of the filibuster that Reid changed — take a look at the Gang of Fourteen.
Totally. This is the most centrist nominee many of the currently sitting repub senators will probably see in their lifetimes, if the what has happened to the GOP this election season is any guide. I’ll bet the bank on them not seeing the inside of the WH for at least 12 years. And Garland doesn’t have to be the second coming of Marshall in order to prevent shenanigans by the conservative scotus block, and even roll back some of their most egregious rulings.
Garland is a dagger in the heart of movement conservatism. If they cave and approve him, what does that do for the troglodite base in november? If they block him, what does it say to the “disgusted with washington” centrist voters?
Its a great pick by Obama.
When I went and read Vox’s primer on the six possibles (and three most likely choices) the other day, Garland was at the absolute bottom of my list. So of course I knew Obama would pick him.
I would hope he doesn’t get confirmed and then they go with someone more left (obviously not someone super left, but I think you can do a little bit better than Garland) after the election because then we’ll have 2 Anthony Kennedy types.
He’s not Kennedy. More of a David Souter.
Scotusblog said he’s between Ginsburg and Kagan on the ideology scale. If that’s the case I’m cool with him, though would of course prefer someone younger and more liberal.
If Garland can put in 20 years and help us get rid of political gerrymandering and excessive restrictions on abortion, I’ll be quite happy with him.
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11250100/merrick-garland-judicial-ideology
Views may differ.
More potential trouble spots.
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/17/11250030/garland-scalia-supreme-court-criminal-justice
I agree with Booman on this. If Hillary wins the GE he will be confirmed in the lame duck.
I agree in part, Booman, and disagree in part. Senate norms on the Republican side have broken down to the point where I think it’s inevitable that the filibuster rule gets changed. Should there be a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in the Senate, I don’t think our party can (or should) allow the Republicans to prevent any qualified nominee from getting an up-or-down vote.
That said, I get why Obama made this pick. In addition to really highlighting Republican intransigence, it’s not clear that Watford, Srinivasan or anyone else who might have made liberals happy was willing to face the kind of quiet hatchet job the Republicans would have attempted. By appointing a true moderate who is about as far right as any Democratic president can go, he’s daring the Republicans to follow through on their pledge. And since they’ve painted themselves so into a corner on not considering any nominee, it’s a brilliant move.
I think it would have been just as brilliant to appoint someone more provocative, assuming someone qualified would have been willing to assume the hot seat. A Mexican nominee could have painted the Republicans into a different but equally uncomfortable corner.
One more thought, which essentially echos what you said. The Court has been radical since Alito’s confirmation. With Scalia gone, even a moderate shifts its balance point way back from loonyville to the center. That’s all we need. This point in history doesn’t require a Warren court. Just one that accepts science as science and is open to reasoned argument.
My guess is that if the Republicans had not been so strident about not considering anyone Obama sent up, we would have seen someone more liberal. But the president is a smart and flexible man who takes advantage of opportunities that open when opponents make dumb moves. He’s not the kind of politician who approaches opponents with a bludgeon. He plays chess and he plays it well.
I would give you two 4’s if I could.
As I stated before. They will cave.
.
Added my 4 for u.
“even a moderate shifts its balance point way back from loonyville to the center. That’s all we need. This point in history doesn’t require a Warren court. Just one that accepts science as science and is open to reasoned argument. “
You said it a lot better than I could. In fact that’s true about a lot of things in American politics as we know it.
The insistence on ideological purity (on both sides) is what keeps this horrible situation going. Sorry folks, but that’s the way it is.
And by the way, I support Bernie Sanders, and neither he nor I is an ideological purist, despite what Paul Krugman thinks. (Actually Krugman doesn’t know me from Adam, but he mistakenly thinks he knows Sanders.)
Anyway, no obvious ideological liberal is going to get confirmed by a senate controlled by the Republican Party as we know it. No how.
But the other part of this is, I doubt they’ll confirm Garland either. So that’s the eleven-dimensional chess aspect. It’s a win/win situation.
The insistence on ideological purity (on both sides) is what keeps this horrible situation going. Sorry folks, but that’s the way it is.
LOL!!!
I’d prefer an American citizen to a Mexican one, but it would be rather provocative.
I agree with all of what you say here, booman.
And speaking of “some people” not relaxing, I got a kick out of Meghan McCain’s response, to the effect: “This is why people hate Obama. He’s sacrificing Judge Garland’s career for politics.”
Wow. Wait to misunderstand everything, Meghan.
I keep thinking I’m going to reach a point where just one more of these awful, stupid, evil, deliberately misleading and hypocritical comments (from a totally unqualified idiot with a huge megaphone and a lot of influence) will send me over the edge.
Oops. I see I wrote “wait to misunderstood everything” rather than “way to misunderstand everything.”
But I agree with your comment. I don’t know if it’s pure grift on the part of these people, or too much time in the bubble. Maybe it’s both.
I trust the President.
I don’t know much about this guy, and the stuff I’ve read about him is iffy. But then if you go back and think that Earl Warren ran for president twice as a Republican…
You just don’t know how a SCOTUS appointment is going to turn out for someone who is not an ideologue (such as Scalia was).
Here’s the thing: Anything but the most nuttinest nutcasey views on constitution law are basically fine. It’s the originalist Scalia-Alito-Thomas wing that is (or should I say was?) the problem.
A so-called moderate will be perfectly fine. The difference between a left-wing judge and the moderate is comparatively tiny as compared to the difference between the moderate and Scalia.
I AGREE!
Of course I agree, since president Obama is following my obstructions … I mean instructions.
He was only speaking figuratively? Oh man, that Trump is a riot. He slays me.
Trying to figure out why DFA or any of the “Kill the Bill” types matter here. These people think they’re the base? They’re not. And the President doesn’t need them to get this pick confirmed. The moderates will do all the heavy lifting…the people who aren’t political and who respond favorably to Judge Garland, they are the ones who will matter in this fight. So liberals who have fought the President for the last seven years…y’all go on ahead and be disappointed. You lost your agency a long time ago. The President knows he can’t depend on the perpetually disappointed. That’s why he didn’t have to choose a firebrand. Garland makes the fight about the GOP obstruction, not about the nominee because he’s not going to be a lightening rod for the reactionaries.
McConnell bit off way more than he can chew with his current strategy.