Not that I object, but I think Red State’s Leon Wolf is a little misguided when he recommends that the Republican Senate confirm Merrick Garland now before Clinton nominates someone younger and more liberal.
It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the status Garland enjoys in Washington DC and among Senate Democrats, the administration and, undoubtedly, the Clinton family. It’s true that he might not have been Obama’s first pick if he had had a free hand, and he might not be Hillary’s first pick, either. But they aren’t going to betray him by revoking his nomination or failing to resubmit it in January. He’s a solid Supreme Court nominee who even most Republicans consider a decent choice.
So, Wolf is basically fear mongering his own conservative audience, which is a little strange but could just be based on his genuinely flawed analysis of the situation.
There’s actually a reason that the Republicans are holding up the nomination, and it has everything to do with their plan to boost turnout in November. They desperately want to be able to argue that social conservatives can still achieve a legal overturning of Roe v. Wade if only they can win the presidential election, and that argument completely disappears if Garland is confirmed to replace Scalia. This turnout consideration is more urgent than ever now that’s it’s obvious that Trump will be the nominee. Social conservatives (including the ones that frequent the Red State blog) are apoplectic about Trump being the Republican standard-bearer, and they aren’t going to turn out for him in their normal numbers.
Now, it’s Wolf’s assessment that none of this matters because Trump is going to lose anyway.
Republicans must know that there is absolutely no chance that we will win the White House in 2016 now. They must also know that we are likely to lose the Senate as well. So the choices, essentially, are to confirm Garland and have another bite at the apple in a decade [because of Garland’s age], or watch as President Clinton nominates someone who is radically more leftist and 10-15 years younger, and we are in no position to stop it.
And if you believe he is going to lose anyway, then why does turnout matter?
Well, it matters for downticket races and control of the Senate and the House. It matters for state legislatures and governor’s mansions.
So, providing the fiction to social conservatives that reproductive rights can still be abolished in the near term is key for Republicans’ success. This hasn’t changed.
What seems to have changed is the social conservatives’ willingness to play their part in the charade.
I think the vise that GOP incumbents inhabit between their rabid base and the electorate at large has been turned about as tight as it can go. They can’t confirm Garland before their state primary elections are held, but they can’t hold out all the way until November, either. I read Wolf’s piece as an introduction of the excuse they intend to use when they reverse course once the primaries are over. As smashed into pieces as their coalition has become, their habits are still monolithic. To introduce this idea through a blog gives McConnell and Grassley cover to say that they are just heeding the feedback of their Republican constituents, not plunging the knife into their backs.
We will see soon enough, I guess.
If the Republicans confirm Garland, it will make it obvious (if it wasn’t already) that this was never a matter of principle. “We must let the people decided. Unless of course it looks like they’ll decide to elect Hillary, in which case we should take what we can get.”
How can that become any more obvious than it already is? They’re not fooling anyone with their principled rhetoric. Half the time they don’t even bother trying.
Abortion is such a convenient tool to hide politicians’ real priorities, isn’t it? For both parties.
That’s easy for you to say, the GOP isn’t trying to control your body or for that matter mine.
That’s why it’s so personal to so many.
One issue voters are easy to control.
Take the economy, for example…
Shhh…
I’m sure we’re all just a bunch of SJWs or something.
Issue. It ties into everything for women most especially their economic situation. The longer women can delay child bearing the most economically prosperous they will be. Study after study bears that out.
By the way this also affects the overall economic well being of countries. Do you know what statistic is the one of those that most closely correlates to GDP per capita? Average educational attainment level of women in that country. And what is a big factor for determining that? Their ability to delay childbearing until later.
So now women who care about the ability to control their own bodies are not one issue voters.
A few years ago I happened on a program on C-Span that featured Ted Turner speaking to a group of college students in California. He was discussing Africa and his philanthropic work there. At some point, when the topic was about the pressures placed on the economies and institutions of the underdeveloped African nations by an exploding birth rate, one student asked why those governments didn’t institute some sort of mandatory birth control, a la what China did a few decades ago.
Turner’s response was “No, that wasn’t necessary and wouldn’t work anyways. All that’s needed is to place birth control information and the means to access those controls in the hands of women. They would then be able to control the size of their families, which would then allow them to become part of the economies of those countries and help spur growth.” Until then I hadn’t realized how important the ability of women to control their reproductive health is to the stability, security, and wealth of families and of whole countries.
Excellent rebuttal.
Usually, if someone is handwaving off the economy, it means it is all about the money.
Yeah, the right to choose is totally just a tool to convince the plebs to vote Dem so we can give all the money to rich people and probably burn Bernie in a trash can, and totally not a deeply held belief among us Dems that women are people and should control their own bodies.
Like I said before, when Vox ran down the top 6 my reaction ‘well I can accept anyobe but Garland’ so of course he’s the pick. Too bad.
4th Amendment issues?
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/17/11250030/garland-scalia-supreme-court-criminal-justice/in/11010549
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11250100/merrick-garland-judicial-ideology/in/11010549
Being trained as an attorney, I tend to put a lot of stock in the jurusprudencd so it’s a tremendous missed chance in my eyes. Par for the course on the Obama era.
I am concerned about the right of the public to record police acting in public.
That issue will be coming since two different Appeals Courts have ruled differently on the issue.
that this could even be considered an “issue”!
Of course citizens have that right!
Democrats have been engaged in making SCOTUS appointments a huge issue like forever and Republicans have responded in turn. With proper framing that is easily understood by the public and doesn’t lead to knee-jerk partisan fights among the public on this issue, the GOP wouldn’t have been winning for the past thirty odd years. The GOP is really better at down in the mud fights than Democrats are.
The unqualified Carswell and Haynesworth were easily defeated. But what has been lost is respect for the seat held by each particular justice. For example, O’Connor got a pass because she was just a bit to the right of her predecessor, but still not willing to overturn Roe and she was a woman. (Corporate/economic issues were considered.) Scalia was just a bit to the right of his predecessor, Rhenquist. That really is the prerogative and privilege of a POTUS and the Senate should respect that as well as the seat the prior justice occupied.
The complete failure to hold to hew to that standard was first seen with Bork (which the Democratic Senate did reject) and then with the nomination of Thomas to replace Marshall. That should have been a complete no-go and instead it got bogged down in racist and salacious crap. Alito was likewise a shift too far right to replace O’Connor. If I am to consider that standard, this is the first Dem nominee of either Clinton or Obama that pushes a seat a bit to the left. (That’s no criticism of Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, or Kagan, but they have been comparable replacements for those SC seats and did not move those seats a bit to the left.)
It’s not up to Obama or any president to correct the past mistakes by prior Senators in a single SC nomination. Plus, except in unusual circumstances it will fail and cost a President a huge amount to political capital if the opposition chooses to fight. Dem Senators rolled over for Thomas, but GHWB still lost political capital with that appointment.
Am I pleased with Garland? Of course not. But in obstructing this nomination, it’s the GOP that’s squandering political capital. Could be the loss margin of a couple of GOP Senators in their re-elections.
Enjoyed your post.
Thanks. Lots of typos and could have been fleshed out a bit more, but then again beating something to death in a comment is boring.
Should add that Democrats and liberals don’t like this sort of dispassionate argument when they have already jumped on an outrage bandwagon. They didn’t bother to read the Kelo v. New London SC decision, but just knew it was wrong and lived with the cognitive dissonance that it was the liberal SC justices that carried decision. That decision couldn’t have been more correct if one values the principle of democracy and that all public policy decisions should be made at the lowest possible level of government.
But, but, isn’t that too much democracy?
It’s true, I don’t have respect for the relative position of the seat. Part of that is because I think SCOTUS has too rarified an opinion of itself and part of the reason is that I prefer the Napoleonic code descended systems to those descending from English common law.
But with this particular pick, it was clear the opposition was going to fight within the hour of the announcement of Scalia’s death. I think Obama could have picked a more left leaning candidate and still basically had the same outcome. GOP was already locked in to the strategy of no — there would not have been a shift to a ‘too liberal’ opposition for some of the other nominees and there were some as distinguished.
Obama could gave gotten more of the pie for the same cost benefit. Thats the missed opportunity.
how it would have played out, but unclear to me how that alternative would have gotten Obama “more of the pie”. As you said, same outcome.
Well if you assume the pick is either confirmed on lame duck or in a possible HRC administration as some seem to, then you end up with a more left leaning SCOTUS than with Garland. Kind of awkward phrasing ony part but pie = liberalness of SCOTUS.
Get real. No way GOP Senators are going to confirm a nominee to replace Scalia that is more liberal than Garland (and for them Garland isn’t an insignificant step to the left from Scalia). That can only happen if they lose net fourteen Senate seats this year. The total of GOP Senate seats that are in the tossup and lean GOP category is eight. And Democrats would still have to hold onto Harry Reid’s seat and Bennet (CO) would have to win his re-election bid.
Is HRC going to do some jujitsu on GOP Senators and get them to confirm a more liberal nomination?
Well I think you’re wrong. Again I think Obama could have dine better than Garland. Simple as that.
HuffPo
I’m cool with “being wrong” along with John Paul Stevens.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have phrased it as “respect for the relative position of the seat.” But the “relative position of a seat” provides some guidance as to how far that seat can be pushed either left or right in a nomination given the constraints of the Senate at the time of a nomination. It also assumes “good faith” among the Senators from both parties. So, for example, when Dem Senators rejected Reagan’s nomination of Bork, there was an implicit message that Bork was a bridge too far and that Dem Senators would confirm a nominee that was similar to or a bit to the right of the conservative Powell. And Democrats expect the same consideration when a Democratic President makes a nomination.
If the GOP had held 60 seats in the Senate at that time, Bork would have been confirmed. However, that condition is rare. The thing that must have driven Republicans nuts for several decades is that once on the SC, many of those nominated by a GOP POTUS ended up leaning left once on the court or in the case of JP Stevens becoming the most liberal member of the court.
Considering that the last Chief Justice nominated by a Democratic POTUS was in 1946 (and he only lasted seven years) and Republican POTUS have nominated more SC justices than Democrats, it’s remarkable that the court hasn’t become even more conservative. (Note: LBJ totally blew his opportunity to name a Chief Justice.) Had Dem Senators not allowed the Bushes to push the envelope with Thomas and Alito, the mix on the court wouldn’t have differed much from what it was in 1970.
This baffles me:
Why is revoking this nomination a ‘betrayal?’ Shouldn’t they be most concerned with getting the best possible person on the Court? If Garland wouldn’t have been Obama or Clinton’s first pick, they should ‘betray’ him in a heartbeat, and choose their first pick–if they think that their first pick has as good a chance of being confirmed.
Surely the country deserves better than a ‘decent choice.’
The principle that Obama has the right to name this Justice seems more important to me than whether Hillary owes Garland anything. I think she owes it to herself and future presidents to consider the precedent she would set if she nominates someone else.
You mean the principle that a president has the right to have a justice move through the confirmation process past the nomination stage is more important to you than the quality of the actual justice who is eventually confirmed?
As our British friends might put it, “not bloody likely!”
Even with a Democratic Senate?
If I’m recalling the minutiae correctly, Reid/Dems got rid of it for Federal judges below SCOTUS, but not for SCOTUS nominees.
A tsunami of a wave election that would pound the GOP back below 41 Senators would be the most astonishing (to me) political outcome in my lifetime so far.
Short of that, or a rule change eliminating filibuster option for SCOTUS, too, they can still block.