Can you give me feedback regarding my thoughts on filling US Supreme Court seats?
Asked by
JLeslie (
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)
October 15th, 2020
As you probably know there is a big uproar among many Democrats that Trump and the republican majority Senate are pushing through a nominee for confirmation. The Democrats say the Republicans are being hypocrites, because when Justice Scalia died they argued it wasn’t right to fill the seat. They argued that since Obama was in his last year of the presidency that we should wait for “the people” to choose a president before doing anything about the Supreme Court. They are full of shit of course, and I was disgusted when the Republicans did it.
From what I understand, and I would like to be corrected if I am wrong, the Majority Leader of the Senate decides the Senate calendar, so if he/she simply chooses not to put the hearings on the calendar they never happen.
I don’t have a huge problem with the Republicans pushing through a nominee right now, because of course they will. My problem is what happened when Obama was president. It seems to me that if a moderate nominee was given a chance at a hearing, some of the Republicans in the Senate might very well have confirmed someone.
I think there should be a rule about putting a candidate on the Senate Calendar. Like it has to be done within 90 days of it being vacated, or something like that. What do you think?
What would be a better suggestion if you don’t like that one.
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10 Answers
It isn’t just SCOTUS nominees, McConnel sat on dozens of court appointees under Obama. It is way Trump has appointed hundreds of judges. He even “criticized Oabam/Biden leaving tons of vacancies, when it was really because of McConnell.
I think you are on the right track, that Federal judges should be voted upon within 60 to 90 days of appointment.
The problem is that such a rule can be ignored by the next Majority leader.
US Presidents are elected to serve 4 years not 3 years and 9 months. The conservative voters who elected Trump expect him to work the entire 4 years.
@gondwanalon That’s what I said. I don’t know what you are talking about. It doesn’t answer my question at all. Are you just agreeing with me on that one point, is that your point?
For me, it isn’t so much that they’re pushing it through as it is that they’re doing this after all their rhetoric re letting the voters decide and not even bringing Garland’s nomination up for a vote. It’s rather two faced. There’s no consistency shown, well, other than being self-serving.
The most you can do is to force nomination by the president and a vote by the Senate within a certain timeframe. You can’t force approval by the Senate.
I think the solution to this problem is for voters on the left to stop voting in limp-dicked moderates who refuse to fight for the American people. When Republicans get an opening they nominate a radical extremist, when a Democrat gets the opportunity, they nominate a compromise candidate and then complain when the other side doesn’t compromise with them.
It’s pathetic. If they fought for things like M4A and had gotten them into law when they had the opportunity, the Republicans would have been boxed out of the decision-making process for at least a generation.
@gorillapaws How would it solve the Supreme Court appointment problem? Let’s say Bernie had been President instead of Obama. With the current process what would have been different?
@JLeslie If it had been Bernie instead of Obama, we would have had M4A, and the Republicans wouldn’t have either the House or the Senate. Furthermore RBG should have retired much earlier than she did. Republicans don’t roll the dice when it comes to power. They seize every opportunity they can.
@gorillapaws I’m still not seeing the connection to Supreme Court nominee process. Even with everything you said the Senate can be majority Republican or Democrat in any given year and people suddenly get ill or die unexpectedly, so we can’t plan ahead for everything. Scalia was a “Republican” justice, and he happened to die when Republicans had the Senate. Are you saying if Scalia likely would have retired if a Republican President was in office? Alito and Thomas haven’t retired.
@JLeslie How did the Republicans block Garland? Because they had the majority in the Senate. Why did that happen? Because Obama abandoned his progressive campaign rhetoric and supported a moderate/compromise platform. He and Debbie Wasserman Schultz also siphoned money out of the state elections to keep political consultants on the payroll, leading to Dems losing over 1k seats, practically bankrupting the party. This lead to HRC’s loss and the rise of right wing populism and ultimately Trump stacking the supreme court with radical right wingers.
This is a direct result of moderates, neoliberalism and supporting candidates that are beloved by Wall Street and billionaires.
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