It’s only awkward if you have beliefs, morals, or shame.
Soma
5495
Is it just me or am I the only one puzzled by the lack of social distancing and mask wearing during Trump’s presentation of Amy Coney Barrett? As if this Covid thing is a hoax?
No? Just me? OK THEN.
newbrof
5496
The hypocracy on display is unbelievable. What I don’t understand, why the Republicans started all this reasoning, explaining “no new judge in an election year”. Why not just saying, we have the power in the senate, therefore no new judge for Obama. Was there a problem telling how it is? Then there would be no hypocracy today, they could say " we have the senate, we appoint judges".
Why all this talking about the bush? I will never understand US politics and how the people accept this …
strategy
5497
It’s quite simple really:
- People are ignorant and stupid.
- Those people who are not ignorant and who do accept it are either amoral or immoral. They don’t care whether you lie, steal or kill, just as long as you win (whether it is pushing through a Christian caliphate or owning the libs or lowering taxes that constitute their idea of winning).
Back then, they still believed they needed to at least have a vaguely plausible excuse. Trump has shown them that the fig leaf isn’t needed.
newbrof
5499
I don’t know. Do they need an excuse to apply the rules as written in the law? If you have a majority in soemthing, you decide. No explanation needed. Maybe I am to game-y here?
I agree, but sadly that’s exactly the reaction the folks behind that shirt that shirt are hoping to achieve.
The fight over Kavanaugh may have costs Democrats senate seats in 2018.
There’s nothing they’re going to be able to bring up about Barrett that will derail her confirmation, either.
They need to be tactical about this. In her confirmation, grill her about her opposition to the ACA especially. Make sure her own words are used against her, and against the president who appointed her. And then, honestly, just walk away from it. This battle is already lost. They need to be ready for the big fight that could be coming.
Well, there are laws and there are senate rules of procedure and there are norms / standards. Historically, when presidents make nominations to the Court, there is a hearing to consider the nomination no matter who controls the Senate, and there is a floor vote on the nomination no matter who controls the Senate, and, virtually always, the president’s nominee is confirmed no matter who controls the Senate. I can recall only one time in my lifetime that a nominee was rejected by the Senate, and that was Bork, and even he was given a full vote on the floor. Every justice currently serving on the Court before Gorsuch was approved with the explicit approval or tacit permission of the opposing party. Even Sotomayor got 9 Republican votes, though in her case Republicans lacked the votes to filibuster the nomination if they wanted to. Kagan could have been filibustered but wasn’t, and got 5 Republican votes. Roberts got 78 votes in the Senate, 22 of them from Democrats who could have filibustered if they wanted to. Alito got 58 votes and could have been filibustered. Thomas was approved when Democrats actually controlled the Senate and could have sent him packing by simply refusing to schedule a vote on him. Certainly they could have defeated the nomination with a simple majority vote, but the standard was that presidents get the person they want unless there is something very wrong with that person.
So yes, McConnell probably thought he needed a rationale for overturning a set of norms that had been in place for decades.
newbrof
5503
ah ok, understand it better now… thanks
No worries. Our system is weird.
The Dems have to pull out all the stops to make the political price of this seat as high as possible, both before and after the election.
I kinda disagree. I mean, they certainly need to not roll over. But letting this slip into performative outrage just hasn’t played well with the older and moderate voters that are carrying Biden ahead right now.
Tie Barrett to her past words and opinions on the ACA. Make it clear to Americans that SCOTUS is going to hear the government’s case to repeal ACA a week after the election. Play that up huge, and celebrate the big hit that made the 2018 blue wave happen.
Alstein
5507
If they repeal the ACA, that’s going to be followed up by massive healthcare hikes, because insurance companies are going to try and recoup some of their COVID cost.
You might get folks conflating those two things, and blaming the Republicans for that as well.
Menzo
5508
Biden will be President and Republicans will blame it all on him, with zero shame.
That’s just a callback to the old playbook for them. They’ve constantly blamed Democrats for leaving in legal loopholes in the ACA that have allowed them to challenge the act in various courts for 8 years now.
Democrats are actually in array? Thinking strategically? Thinking tactically?
This may very well be the end times!
Djscman
5512
That’s true. These Republican SCOTUS nominations always remind me of Harriet Miers, too. The Senate didn’t reject her, but she was so obviously unfit to replace Sandra Day O’Connor that people from both parties harrumphed until Miers withdrew her nomination. To me, that was also a tipping point in the W. administration. The GOP stopped supporting everything George Bush had proposed ever since 9/11 and started showing a hint of independence.
Though of course the SCOTUS got Alito instead, so it wasn’t like the US dodged a major conservative bullet.
magnet
5513
I don’t think ignoring judicial review will work. The main arguments in the article are that judicial review doesn’t occur so much in other countries, and it would often be nice to ignore it in this country.
The problem is that America is not like other countries. It uses common law, which means that precedent is binding. But unlike other common law countries, it has a coequal judiciary rather than a sovereign parliament.
In practice, that means that courts are free to contradict what the legislature decides (unlike parliamentary democracies), but courts are not free to contradict previous cases (unlike civil law systems). Together, they make judicial review all but inevitable.
So let’s take the hypothetical example of the SCOTUS declaring the ACA unconstitutional, and the president says “I will continue to operate the program as instructed”. But the program cannot operate if nobody (outside government) follows the rules, nobody (outside government) can be forced to follow the rules unless a court orders them to do so, and no court will order anyone to do so. In practice, that means that anyone willing to sue the government (e.g. insurance companies that wanted to violate the ACA by excluding pre-existing conditions) would not be bound by the law. Which for all practical purposes would mean the ACA is no longer the law.
And I think it’s telling that the author’s historical example of ignoring judicial review is of Lincoln ignoring habeas corpus. But this just illustrates the point that the executive and judiciary need to cooperate for laws to function. Habeas corpus, like any other law, cannot function if one side or the other abandons it.
