I think Obama could’ve played the same game and seated him, but he wasn’t willing to.
The Constitution says nothing about a vote. It says the Senate gives it’s “Advice and Consent”. They abdicated that by refusing to do anything, at least in this line of logic. I mean McConnell showed us that precedent is meaningless with what he was doing, but Obama decided to be the nice guy. Again. Because he thought Hillary would win or he’s just a big pussy, we’ll never know for sure.
Neither of the examples you gave were “unpopular” decisions. They were both controversial, popular among Republicans and unpopular among Democrats.
Furthermore, you seem to be trying to argue that unpopular Court decisions do not have consequences, but that implies that the Court is insufficiently democratic.
In other words, if the public really did overwhelmingly turn against the Republicans for failing to support the Medicaid expansion, then the quickest way to make the Court reflect popular sentiment would be to pack it.
I agree the solution should ideally be on the State level. Like some posters have posted about how their State has mail-in ballots and absentee voting made very easy. Some allow a week for voting instead of just one day. But again, this seems to be going on in Blue States. Former Purple States like Missouri that become more and more red are in danger of going the other way, with more restrictive laws coming down the pike.
It says the consent of the Senate is required. It even says that to create a new position that does not require consent, the full Congress must agree beforehand.
And the Senate cannot provide consent, or anything else, without a vote.
They give or deny consent via vote, imo.
This is the grey area that McConnell has been burning for a decade now and everyone lets him because it technically doesn’t say he can’t. He could hold a vote to suspend elections forever and people would point out some technicality that it doesn’t say he CAN’T do that so it must be fine.
I don’t think my argument would’ve held up, but Obama did : literally nothing. He should’ve been spitting fire and screaming on television and pointing out how the GOP was destroying the republic, but he decided to be the nice guy cause it worked so well for him for near a decade.
No. I’m simply viewing with skepticism your claim that
Still looking for examples. I get that you don’t like my counterexamples, as I have already granted.
I wish he had said more on the topic as well, and reminded the media and public about it constantly, but remember that this nation’s White Supremacist history has left the vast majority with at least implicit racist attitudes. “Spitting fire and screaming” on TV would have probably been counterproductive.
Works for the other guys! :P
I meant for Obama. Which would be a frown and maybe raising his voice slightly.
Well now I feel obligated to link…
I vaguely thought it was in the Constitution also, it’s not.
According to Wiki it goes back to a Congressional law pass in 1845 which establishes the 2nd Tuesday in Nov. There wasn’t a ton of debate . It could be changed by fairly easily.
The wiki article had some interesting stuff that I contradicted what I thought I knew. It turns giving time off on election day for voting isn’t a federal requirement although many, but not all states require it. I was also disappointed to learn that while Oregon, and Colorado require mailed ballot to received election day, Washington only requires them to postmarked by election day. (Thus setting up the possibility of us waiting for several days for WA to count the votes in a close election.)
I also really like the proposal of merging election day with Veterans, it seems like a very appropriate way of honoring Veterans.
Damn that was funny. I miss Obama.
Examples of backlash aren’t hard to find. The 2006 midterms partly represented a backlash against the Bush proposal to alter our right to Social Security. The 2010 midterms partly represented a backlash against the ACA, from those who thought it violated their property rights.
If you’re looking for examples of backlash against a packed Court, obviously there aren’t any because we aren’t packing the Court yet.
Ehh, maybe that was a factor for us political junkies who were paying attention. I think the main reason for the Dems taking the House in the 2006 elections was the complete and utter clusterf__k that the Administration had made of the occupation of Iraq, combined with the increasingly apparent fact that it had massaged the facts more than a bit to justify the war in the first place. Also, wasn’t news of all the warrantless wiretapping post 9/11 starting to come out by then?
But that hasn’t been tested (and won’t be). The express text also ties gun ownership to well-regulated militias, but people have dig deep into the framers’ intent to figure out what gun rights are mandated by it. I doubt the framers’ intent was to allow a single senator to override the President’s nomination by refusing a procedural step, and it pretty clearer was not their intent to have Presidents in their last year in office be unable to appoint anyone. So, I disagree - it violated the Constitution in the same way that many many laws that have been struck down violated it. There’s nothing in there that explicitly says, “You can’t prevent people from getting gay married or having abortions” either, yet those laws violated the Constitution.
Use an absentee ballot. You are talking about a tiny, tiny percentage of the voters who literally wouldn’t have time to vote in a 7 day period. So you let them request an absentee ballot online, get it in the mail, and drop it in the mail.
I mean the downside of most of these seemingly excellent state-based suggestions like absentee ballots is that a lot of people are stuck living in states overwhelmingly populated by shitty fucking Republicans who can and will outvote them no matter what, so, I mean. . . not like those guys are gonna make it easier for the goddamned libs to win if they can help it . . .
James Madison was still alive when the Senate declined to vote on Crittenden.
As Sharpe pointed out, this was in the last months of the John Quincy Adams presidency, but nothing in the Constitution suggests that the last year should be treated differently than the last month.
Yeah, well on some level that’s just tough shit.
You gotta move. If states are fucked up, get out of those states.