Last Days of the Republic, Justice Ginsburg Edition
September 22nd, 2020 by Patrick Henry
The unedifying spectacle of both parties seamlessly switching their position on Supreme Court nominations during elections.
Democrats threatening packing the Court, packing the Senate with DC and Puerto Rico statehood, and ending the filibuster.
Republicans threatening to skip the customary hearing.
We are not assigning blame. We are not even lamenting the individual norm; not all norms are good.
We are recognizing that norms are toppling.
Comments (4)
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
September 22nd, 2020 08:50:34
Michael Towns
September 22, 2020
Two points:
1. There hasn’t been a seamless switch of position. McConnell made it clear in 2016 that he wasn’t going to bring Garland’s nomination to the floor because the White House and the Senate were opposite parties. This time around, both the White House and the Senate are in GOP control. Now that may strike you and many others as a distinction without merit, nevertheless, it’s a distinction that matters. Details matter, here. The Senate in 2016 had no constitutional duty to consider Obama’s nominee. In fact, the Senate can decide on any number of ways to reject a president’s nominee.
2. Hearings are a relatively recent phenomenon. Given the utter spectacle of the Kavanaugh hearings, I say skip them from here on out. They are an absolute waste of time. A circus in Baghdad would be more dignified, and that’s an insult to circuses in Baghdad.
I do, however, agree with you that “norms” are being toppled. We are in a very unique and interesting period in the country’s history.
John Mansfield
September 22, 2020
Do you suppose Article 1 Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which describes the Senate with two senators from each state, will be found by a future Supreme Court to be unconstitutional? Under old understandings, nothing could be more constitutional than the Constitution’s layout of how the branches of government are constituted, but “unconstitutional” hasn’t had much to do lately with such tautologies, but more with declaring something ungood and out of accord with the current fashions.
Sute
September 22, 2020
To echo Michael’s point:
It’s a disservice to an individual you won’t be hiring under and circumstances for to spend the time interviewing them.
Is there any circumstance where you’d want to spend weeks going through an intensive process to be told it was never going to go your way? Yes there is one: if you want to be used as publicity to show how wrong the other side was in rejecting you.
Democrats would have played politics with a down vote, just as they played politics with a no vote. Republicans denied them that chance (or reduced it’s power) through their own political manuvering.
All the hand wringing is nonsense. Even the threats to pack the court. If there’s nothing unconstitutional, go ahead. It’s amazing how the threat of a justice who sides with the Dems 60-70% of the time is worth blowing everything up though.
We really have forgotten how to get along with people who disagree with us.
Zen
September 25, 2020
Speaking of our Intelligensia, (I am not exclusively pointing at the Left) https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/totalitarianism-american-intelligents-ibram-x-kendi-gary-saul-morson/
Anyone calling for war now, does not appreciate what kind of feedback loop we are in.
All of this said, amending the Constitution for a definite number of Justices, who serve a given time limit, makes a lot of sense. I understand Dems floated the idea of SC Justices serving 18 years, and I think that is entirely reasonable and would save a lot of grief.