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Obama Nominates Merrick Garland for SCOTUS

And I see that both MysteryMan and Bernbp beat me to the point. Bork was a regressive and misogynist dbag, and one of like two or three nominations in history to be opposed by the ACLU. If republicans want to down-vote Obama's nomination for his politics, there should be plenty of time to nominate a second.
 
Junebug said:
Also, the senate may come to the conclusion that the political risk of delaying is outweighed by the harm to country created by giving the nominee an up or down vote. In these circumstances, I think that conclusion is probably within the senate's exclusive purview, and if you disagree you can do your best to vote the bastards out.
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It just seems silly to change the ordinary course of business when the President has nearly a full year left in his term. The senate may always justifiably refuse to vote on a president's nominee until they have had time to fully vet the nominee and have discussions about the nominee. If that happens to go through the end of a President's term so be it.

The outer limit for the amount of time it usually takes to vet, discuss, and vote on a nominee appears to be around 4 months. Obama has 11 months left on his term. I just can't see a reasonable argument for why the senate shouldn't give an up or down vote.
 
Time isn't even close to an issue, it's laughable that is even being discussed. The longest nomination process in history concluded in about 120 days and on average it takes 30 days.
 
With the seismic shift in the balance of power created by this nomination -- and the consequent potential impact on the stability of our legal system -- the senate should be extremely diligent in vetting any candidate Obama nominates.
 
They don't need more than double the time of the longest vetting process in American history.
 
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Fuck Your Couch said:
Time isn't even close to an issue, it's laughable that is even being discussed. The longest nomination process in history concluded in about 120 days and on average it takes 30 days.
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125 days.

And things have been different since Bork. No one has been confirmed in under 50 days since then (with the longest being Thomas at 99 days) including times when the president and the senate were ideologically aligned.
 
Good thing there are 340 days left in Obama's presidency.

Why are we still talking about Bork? Bork got a vote within a reasonable time span and lost 42-58. Then Kennedy was unanimously approved, GASP, in an election year.

Never in the history of the Supreme Court has a candidate not received an up or down vote based on it being an election year.
 
Junebug said:
With the seismic shift in the balance of power created by this nomination -- and the consequent potential impact on the stability of our legal system -- the senate should be extremely diligent in vetting any candidate Obama nominates.
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I mean there have been seismic shifts in power before....it still never took anyone a year to be vetted and back then with no electronic info it was a lot harder to vet someone
 
270 days until a new president is elected. If that president is a republican, there is no way the senate should give the outgoing administration -- and the policies it represesents -- a confirmation that will have impacts for 30 more years.
 
Junebug said:
270 days until a new president is elected. If that president is a republican, there is no way the senate should give the outgoing administration -- and the policies it represesents -- a confirmation that will have impacts for 30 more years.
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So what should be the cutoff number of days?
 
Fuck Your Couch said:
270 is 145 days more than the longest nomination process in history.
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The vast majority of the data is from non-election years. The most recent time a sitting justice resigned or died in an election year was 1932 (OWH), and although he was quickly replaced, the senate and president were from the same party.

Abe Fortas was nominated for Chief Justice in an election year (1968), but was filibustered in part because of the fact that the nomination occurred in an election year.
 
Antonin Scalia Reportedly Dead at 79

So there's no modern precedent for filibustering a new nominee. Good to know.
 
Junebug if there was a Republican president right now would the Republican Senate be saying that they should wait for the election because the American people deserve a voice?
 
MysteryMen said:
Junebug if there was a Republican president right now would the Republican Senate be saying that they should wait for the election because the American people deserve a voice?
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If there was a republican president and democratic senate, I have no doubt we'd all be arguing the exact opposite.
 
Junebug said:
If there was a republican president and democratic senate, I have no doubt we'd all be arguing the exact opposite.
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1. That wasn't the question.

2. I am relatively positive no Dem majority leader would come out and say categorically that no nominees would even be considered
 
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