ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
It is interesting that the board libs are not advocating for the best person to become justice, but the one that would inflict most damage to republicans if blocked.
so?
It is interesting that the board libs are not advocating for the best person to become justice, but the one that would inflict most damage to republicans if blocked.
It is interesting that the board libs are not advocating for the best person to become justice, but the one that would inflict most damage to republicans if blocked.
It is interesting that the board libs are not advocating for the best person to become justice, but the one that would inflict most damage to republicans if blocked.
He will dodge or hide behind something like "Democrats would do it too"
I mean Sri Srinivasan is arguably the best person to become a Justice. The guy was one of the most highly regarded Supreme Court lawyers in the country and now is a judge on the most important Circuit in the country. It's basically the same resume as John Roberts
Blackman also raised an interesting possibility. If Republicans try to screw the Dems by not bringing their nominee to the floor, if the Dems manage to retake the Senate they could theoretically still get their nominee through even if they lose the presidency. The new Senate meets on Jan. 3 and President Obama doesn't leave office until Jan. 21. If Republicans screw around here, you get bet for damn sure that a Dem majority senate won't think twice about shoving someone through in Obama's final days.
It seems like the only play is the GOP to threaten not to confirm anybody so that they get a moderate nominee.
Otherwise they risk [guarantee] that the next POTUS gives them 3 F U nominees when justices start retiring.
It seems like the only play is the GOP to threaten not to confirm anybody so that they get a moderate nominee.
Otherwise they risk [guarantee] that the next POTUS gives them 3 F U nominees when justices start retiring.
knowell, do you believe Senate Republicans should block any Obama nominee?
The Court has recognized that an arrangement of the balance of power between the branches can become so set in stone that regardless of whether it was the arrangement the founders intended it nonetheless has become constitutionally mandated. NLRB v. Noel Canning is a recent example. There the court essentially said that since Presidents had used recess appointments in a certain way, and the Senate has acquiesced in that use, for most of our nations history that even though the scope of that power was unclear at the time the constitution was drafted, it was now clearly constitutional.
Scalia objected to this reasoning in his concurrence (Case was ultimately decided on another matter) but he was in the minority.
Your example from the Canning case is a far cry from the argument that Congress is constitutionally precluded from amending the statute setting the number of justices who sit on the Supreme Court.
The whole "living constitution" dig at liberal justices is vastly overblown, IMO. The drafters of the constitution used some vague as shit words and phrases not because they were lazy but because they realized that some of those words would take on different, potentially expanded, meanings over time.
The Founders would be horrified at "originalism" (Scalia wasn't really an originalist fwiw, Thomas is by far the closest of any modern justice). The constitution was as much aspirational as it was foundational. Limiting the effect of its protections to how those protections were understood in the late 1700's flies in the face of everything the document stands for.
Finding that "due process" or "cruel and unusual punishment" covers more than it did over 200 years ago is not believing in a "living constitution", and the founders certainly did not intend for the amendment process to be used to update society's understanding of what the words of the constitution meant.
Conservatives favor a literal limited view of the constitution not out of principle but because 1780's social values are more preferable to them than 2016's social values.
Junebug, do you believe Senate Republicans should refuse to vote on appointees nominated by Democrat Presidents?