In February, Justice Antonin Scalia died at age 79, after 30 years on the Supreme Court. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said his “SCOTUS task force” would amount to “the most comprehensive judicial response effort in our party’s history”.
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The Republicans who control the Senate have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on anyone Obama picks, saying the choice should belong to the next president who takes office in January after the November 8 presidential election.
“The RNC will dedicate staff and resources to thoroughly vetting the president’s nominee and launch a messaging effort against Democrats to make them explain why they do not want adhere to the Biden Rule and give the American people a voice in this process”, a spokesman said Monday.
Beyond the claim that Obama would be breaking with “decades of precedent” by offering a nominee – which has already been debunked by Politifact – the choice of words here is interesting.
Two others on the list are Merrick Garland, chief judge from the same of court as Srinivasan, and Paul Watford, a judge in the California-based court of appeals, according to Washington Post.
“The coordinated grassroots effort that has already proven a powerful tool to put pressure on Republicans will only ramp up”, a former White House communications official who is helping coordinate the public roll-out of the President’s nominee. It’s the actual Republican party-wide position right now. “That includes events in targeted states with real working Americans pushing Senate Republicans to do their jobs, press events with key Democratic members and groups, and coordinated validator pushes like those with the legal scholars, historians, law deans and attorneys general”.
It wouldn’t matter if President Obama were to appoint a moderate, or someone that some Senate Republicans might normally be inclined to support.
In a fiery Senate speech Thursday, Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of MA demanded that Republicans “do your job” and hold a hearing and a vote on the president’s eventual nominee. Also within days, Obama may have put forth an actual nominee, whose qualifications and life story will be gaining media attention.
What should be done by senators and officials – people who are ultimately accountable to the public – will instead be done by partisan operatives.
One conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, said it was spending six figures to lambast a potential nominee, Jane Kelly, in markets around the country.
That’s why I find the crass political reaction of Republican presidential candidates and U.S. Sens.
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Towards the end of a year ago, Justice Scalia had unfortunately and untimely passed away, leaving his post at the Supreme Court vacant. But that might afford the nominee a chance to directly respond to his or her Republican cross-examiners in a high profile setting (as opposed to only having Democratic groups mount all the pushback, which of course they will also do, once there is a nominee). When Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell feels that he could lose is Senate majority over this issue, we will become more likely to budge on it.
