The choice for Republican senators: Advise and Consent, or Listen Up and Roll Over?
Senators Collins and Murkowski have committed to opposing the consideration of a replacement for Justice Ginsburg before the election. So has Lindsey Graham, but the Democrats were mean to Brett Kavanaugh, so his word no longer binds him.
Reports that my senior senator, Chuck Grassley, had also committed to opposing a vote prior to the election have turned out to be false. Much to my disappointment, Sen. Grassley has once again bent the knee to the orange God-Emperor.
Romney and Sasse have yet to be heard from. It will take four Republican votes to prevent the president from ramming an appointment through the Senate between now and November 3. If it's a tie, it'll be just like the Leffingwell nomination in Advise and Consent. The vice-president would break the tie.
Three Republican senators are going to have to stand up to Trump and refuse to back down if the nomination is not to be railroaded through. Murkowski and Collins, both of whom are facing tough battles for re-election, would probably be helped by facing Mr. Trump down (especially after the way they both caved on impeachment), Sasse, for example, would damage his re-election prospects by refusing to go along. And after being the one Republican to vote to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial, it Mitt Romney has decided not to push his luck; he's on board.
My guess is that the new justice- probably Amy Coney Barrett- will be on the Court before Mr. Trump tries to overturn the result of the election by legal means. As I've observed before, that will not only mean that the Court's conservative, notionally pro-life majority will be firmly established (though I doubt that even with Prof. Barrett on the Court it will reverse Roe and I'd be surprised if it even revised it), there will no longer be a rational argument for anybody at least on the pro-life side to the Court the decisive reason for anybody's presidential vote in future elections. If the Court is going to revisit Roe, the votes will already be there to do it. Both the principle of stare decisis and the disruptive impact on society that returning abortion to the states after all these years make such a thing unlikely, especially since Roe enjoys widespread support in the nation as a whole. That reversing the Court's overreach in Roe would be the constitutionally proper thing to do won't enter into it.
Of course, a new poll shows that 62% of the American people oppose the confirmation of a new justice before the election, so that won't help the President's slim chances of re-election. All-in-all, from my personal point of view, there's no downside- except that given historical precedent and given the refusal of a Republican Senate to even consider President Obama's nomination of Merritt Garland in the leadup to the 2016 election and the solemn vows Lindsey Graham and other Republican senators took on that occasion to never countenance such an outrage if the shoe ever was on the other foot, the hypocrisy is kind of obvious. Apparently, the word of U.S. senators doesn't mean much these days.
I love the idea of Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court. I will rejoice if a clear pro-life (and originalist) majority on the Court develops. I'll be delighted if abortion- which should have been a state matter all along and has warped our national politics for decades- ceases to be a meaningful factor in presidential politics. And I am anything but heartbroken at the prospect of the worst president in our history being turned out of office.
The thing is, though, that no matter how many really, really good things it will bring about, it shouldn't happen. It's dishonorable and it brings both the Senate and the process into disrepute.
But I'm pretty sure that it will happen, and the ruckus should be another fascinating side-light to what I have to agree is the most consequential presidential election of my lifetime.
Three Republican senators are going to have to stand up to Trump and refuse to back down if the nomination is not to be railroaded through. Murkowski and Collins, both of whom are facing tough battles for re-election, would probably be helped by facing Mr. Trump down (especially after the way they both caved on impeachment), Sasse, for example, would damage his re-election prospects by refusing to go along. And after being the one Republican to vote to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial, it Mitt Romney has decided not to push his luck; he's on board.
My guess is that the new justice- probably Amy Coney Barrett- will be on the Court before Mr. Trump tries to overturn the result of the election by legal means. As I've observed before, that will not only mean that the Court's conservative, notionally pro-life majority will be firmly established (though I doubt that even with Prof. Barrett on the Court it will reverse Roe and I'd be surprised if it even revised it), there will no longer be a rational argument for anybody at least on the pro-life side to the Court the decisive reason for anybody's presidential vote in future elections. If the Court is going to revisit Roe, the votes will already be there to do it. Both the principle of stare decisis and the disruptive impact on society that returning abortion to the states after all these years make such a thing unlikely, especially since Roe enjoys widespread support in the nation as a whole. That reversing the Court's overreach in Roe would be the constitutionally proper thing to do won't enter into it.
Of course, a new poll shows that 62% of the American people oppose the confirmation of a new justice before the election, so that won't help the President's slim chances of re-election. All-in-all, from my personal point of view, there's no downside- except that given historical precedent and given the refusal of a Republican Senate to even consider President Obama's nomination of Merritt Garland in the leadup to the 2016 election and the solemn vows Lindsey Graham and other Republican senators took on that occasion to never countenance such an outrage if the shoe ever was on the other foot, the hypocrisy is kind of obvious. Apparently, the word of U.S. senators doesn't mean much these days.
I love the idea of Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Court. I will rejoice if a clear pro-life (and originalist) majority on the Court develops. I'll be delighted if abortion- which should have been a state matter all along and has warped our national politics for decades- ceases to be a meaningful factor in presidential politics. And I am anything but heartbroken at the prospect of the worst president in our history being turned out of office.
The thing is, though, that no matter how many really, really good things it will bring about, it shouldn't happen. It's dishonorable and it brings both the Senate and the process into disrepute.
But I'm pretty sure that it will happen, and the ruckus should be another fascinating side-light to what I have to agree is the most consequential presidential election of my lifetime.
Comments