I tried to figure out the likely aftermath of the election, but I am lacking some data.
Hillary Clinton looks most likely to win as president, but not with a Democratic house and the senate is a toss-up.
So without the House, and with House Republicans controlled by the Tea Party, not much legislation can be passed. Except TPP and such, but lets hope she keeps her current position at that.
But at least she gets nominations and thus the Supreme Court, right?
And here is what I want to ask you: will she be able to pass nominations? Will the republicans continue to refuse to fill the Supreme Court if they retain majority?
If the Democrats hold a majority in the Senate at least there will be hearings, but can the Republicans filibuster nominations?
(If anyone missed it, I am European, I am just trying to understand your election of world supremo over there.)
Oh, I’m confident that after a cosmetic touchup here or there that the TPP will regain enough of its former allure. “Nothing is perfect,” the new President will explain. “But on the whole…”
And the loyalists who, when her polls looked discouraging, blamed Sanders for having portrayed her as untrustworthy, will irritatedly say that anyone should have known her true feelings on the issue.
If the Dems take the Senate (and not the House) we’ll see a recap of the last 6 years. If we don’t take the Senate we’ll see unprecedented obstruction. They won’t even let Hillary name a cabinet.
It depends on whether Trump goes through a blip or a complete meltdown.
The larger the electoral vote for Clinton, the more optimistic the options for domestic policy. Foreign policy is tough with either candidate; to much signalling toughness to actually move toward stability and peace.
Five weeks is still a long time in politics and polls at one point showed her approaching 400 electoral votes.
Republicans will be able to filibuster Senate nominations if they control the Senate or if the Democrats fail to control 60 votes. But the Democrats could change the rules at the beginning of the session to end the filibuster entirely. The majority sets the rules for the session.
The filibuster is unlikely to ever be important again. It’s gone if either party ever gets the trifecta. It’s already gone for any nominations other than the Supreme Court, and if Garland isn’t sitting come January and the Dems have the Presidency and the Senate, it’s gone for that too. Maybe even if Garland is sitting, so Breyer or Ginsberg can retire.
First step for judicial nominees is getting through the Senate Judiciary Committee. They can be stalled, as Garland’s is, by not holding hearings. Hold hearings and not pass the nominee out of the Committee. Or pass it out of the committee as “approved,” “no opinion,” “disapprove” and then the nomination moves to the full Senate. The nomination can be filibustered, but iirc cloture only requires a 51 vote majority and not 60 votes and confirmation only requires a majority.
Not known what the Senate Republicans will do with HRC SC nominations. A number of courtesy traditions exist and the Senate majority and SC seat being filled are variables. For example, while Democrats held the majority in 1993-1994, Orrin Hatch was consulted and he recommended Ginsburg and Breyer to fill Bryon White’s and Harry Blackmun’s former seats.
Merrick Garland was praised by several senior Republican Senators when he was nominated to the Appeals Court, but they are currently supported the obstruction of his nomination.
Lots of wonderful answers about our crazy system, and here’s another take.
Should the Repubs continue to hold both the House and Senate after the election, our politics will be a replay of the past two years with Obama–no likelihood of any legislative activity, should HRC continue to espouse the policies of the 2016 Dem platform. So continuing fights over the most basic aspects of governance, such as funding the government.
As regards the Supreme Court, if the Repubs continue to hold the senate, it is not clear what exactly will happen to HRC’s nominees. As we can see with the Garland nomination, a senate majority can literally refuse to do anything and can keep the Court shorthanded for as long as it likes. The Court’s dysfunction appears to be meaningless to the citizenry and Repubs are not paying any sort of price for laming it. Indeed, it looks very likely they will hold their majority in the face of such tactics.
I personally think that the Repubs would refuse to confirm any HRC Supreme Court nominee that they haven’t pre-approved. They will be happy to keep the Court hanging and shorthanded indefinitely. The question will be if HRC caves in and gives them a Repub in order to get someone, anyone, confirmed. But there is no “rule” that requires the senate majority to vote on any nominee.
If the Dems do take the senate but don’t get a filibuster-proof majority (which they most certainly will not), then the issue of the minority filibuster will raise its head. As curt notes above, the Dem senate in 2014 abolished the filibuster for lower level prez appointees and judges and the question is whether they would extend this to Supreme Court nominees if Repubs continued their filibuster tactics. It is very difficult to see why Dems would not abolish the filibuster for this office as well, so HRC would then get her Supreme Court nominees through.
Anyway, as you can see there is an excellent chance of even greater dysfunction and gridlock in the American government for quite a long time into the future–unless Der Trumper wins, in which case a whirlwind of reactionary, anti-progressive legislative activity will immediately commence. And the Supreme Court will likely become extremely rightwing for in excess of 25 years.
My predictions:
Most presidents get 1 thing they want in their first 100 days. Bill Clinton had his tax raise (his stimulus bill failed even though it was a token and included lots of conservative stuff like SDI); Obama had his stimulus bill which packaged lots of stuff including infrastructure and payroll tax cuts. Since there are no major crises right now, Hillary will probably get either military (‘fighting ISIS’) or infrastructure (‘building crumbling roads and bridges’) though the latter will ultimately not amount to much when red states sabotage it. After that, I suspect she will work better with Congress than Obama, but mostly because she will be going 30% of the way on the Republican agenda, as opposed to Obama who went 20% of the way on the Democratic agenda. 2018 will see R gains in the Senate since the president’s party almost always loses.
As far as Supreme Court, her expected nominees are to Garland’s right, so Republicans will let her have the first. I expect future nominees to be preapproved by Republicans. Sometimes that works – RBG was approved by Orrin Hatch.
Decent NYTimes ranking of the SC Justices. Although it’s difficult to see that much distance between Thomas and Alito.
If I use a 0 to 7 scale with Bork at 0 and Douglas at 7 and am very generous, Thomas would be a 1. But it’s important to recognize that he assumed the seat of a 7, Marshall.
Historically, many SC Justices have grown during their tenure. For example, Stevens wasn’t a 7 when appointed, but within a few years, he got and stayed there until after his retirement. Not so common for conservative SC justices and when such growth takes place, it’s painfully slow and the steps are small. Most are rigid; where they were when they joined the court is where they stay.
Ginsburg was probably closer to a 7 when appointed than Sotomayor but Sonia has come along nicely and quickly. Still have hopes for Kagan, but so far looks as if the balance of the court wasn’t changed with Obama’s two appointees. Stevens and Souter replaced with Kagan and Sotomayor. Just a bit mixed up as technically Sotomayor replaced Souter and not Stevens and Kagan is Stevens replacement.
Scalia was a 2. Rhenquist closer to a 3. O’Connor and Kennedy both 3 (although of late, Kennedy has been wandering into 4 territory more frequently). So, Republican Senators want Scalia replaced with a 2, but they already got their 2 in Alito who replaced a 3. The thing is that for near fifty years, Republicans have sought nominations that if at all possible tick to the right of whoever is being replaced.
Thus: Warren > Burger > Rhenquist. Isn’t anyone around that ticks further right than Rhenquist that could also be deemed qualified; therefore, Roberts is comparable to Rhenquist.
The GOP did have a couple of misses with Stevens and Souter, but Democratic Senators were mindful that these nominees were replacements for Douglas and Brennan and therefore, Republicans couldn’t push the envelope by much. (Don’t know that I’ll ever forgive Joe Biden for letting the unqualified Thomas through the Judiciary Committee.)
Short of massive Republican Congressional losses, a compromise on replacing Scalia will be difficult to find. They’re willing to live with a deadlocked Supreme Court for as long as they’re willing to live with a deadlocked federal government. Also doubt they’ll consider any replacements for Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kennedy (assuming orderly and expected retirements) that also don’t tick right. Gaming it out, they’d be fine with a five member Supreme Court.