Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

You are not understanding that standard protocol isn't a constitutional thing. Standard practice is not written in law, but it's a norm of operation that people operate under. This kind of things happen everywhere in life, from personal, to work to government. Granted, sometime it's "bad" standard and needs to break, but most of the time, it has been established as such for good reasons.

Because of such abuse, some of these standards practice probably does now needs to be written in law otherwise this type of abuse will continue.

I'll ask another way... do we want to have "stealing" SJC seat NOW a standard practice? Because we could definitely go down that route when we just said, it's normal politic. No, it's not normal and no, I don't believe anyone of us deep down think that the ideal of stealing is right. It's right there on the border of being unethical and immoral. If you are religious person, probably every single religions said thou shall not steal. And if you aren't, you probably still understand the basic concept of the wrongness of it and might even see the harm that it causes. It seems promising initially when you get it, but that's short term gain is deceiving. We all eventually will paid the price when there is unethical and immoral actions.

 

I understand what you're saying about "protocol," I just do not agree with you that such unwritten rules are binding in any real sense. And to say that violating such unwritten rules constitutes an "abuse" is something that reasonable people can disagree about.

On your rephrasing of the question ("do we want to have "stealing" SJC seat NOW a standard practice?"), you've simply shifted the particulars of the Garland nomination to a speculative, future slippery slope complaint. Nobody has argued for "stealing" Supreme Court seats to become normal practice. I myself suggested in the previous post that the Republicans on the senate judiciary committee gambled with time. At no point did they or I suggest that if Clinton had been elected that their stonewalling of the process would have continued for the next four or eight years of Clinton's presidency.

Finally I think the framing of the the Gorsuch nomination and confirmation process as "stealing" is itself susceptible to criticism as a type of partisan spin. I don't know if you know George Lakoff's book Don't Think of an Elephant, but it's a great short treatment of the subject of "framing" such political terms. I'd simply fall back on what I've already said, which is to echo Noah Feldman with the "First Rule of Fight Club" defense of what happened: the first rule of Supreme Court nominations is that there are no rules.

Which is to say I don't believe the "stealing" of a seat rises to the level of an immoral action or harm to the republic. If it were we would label all such political maneuvering at all levels of government immoral. (well, come to think of it . . . I kid, I kid.) And even if I were to grant the label of "stealing" in this case, I do not believe in ethical absolutism. Thus exceptions to rules can be morally permitted, if enough is at stake and if a threshold has been crossed that warrants such an exception. The German philosopher Kant notoriously got himself into trouble with absolutist arguments about prohibitions of things like lying. While I agree with your statement "We all eventually will paid the price when there is unethical and immoral actions," I disagree with the assessment that unethical and immoral actions have necessarily occurred here.

 

Your position may be tenable in most cases but I would disagree when it comes to the supreme court.

The judiciary and the supreme court in particular is the most critical leg of the tripod democracy, as they are the (final) interpreters of the law and the constitution (which is essentially the highest law). This makes the supreme court the de facto and de jure umpire of the political system.

For the system to be sustainable, requires that the umpire remains apolitical as much as possible, and thus it is best if the supreme court appointment process is kept above the pile of sh*t called partisan politics. I am fine with the other party playing the role of the opposition and trying to make the appointment as rigorous as possible but believe the GOP have gone a few steps too far.

To not even be willing to hold a hearing no matter who the nominee was, (AFAIK) set a terrible precedent, both for the process and the composition of the court. That precedent, (which will most certainly be returned in kind and likely much more worse), makes it almost a certainty that going forward:
- there will be no supreme court appointments unless same party controls both senate and the executive;
- and it also ensures that whoever has control of both senate and white house will ram whichever extremist they want down the throat of the other party and the people;
- It also raises the stakes for Supreme court appointments, with timing of "retirements" likely taking priority over the integrity of the court.

At the end of the day, we are likely to end up with a highly politicized supreme court, providing rulings along "party" lines, no different from the current farce we have in the legislative, and subsequently will follow the death of this democracy.

While it is always easy to condemn the politicians, the true criminal is the ignorance of the US people, which has made us narrow minded and short sighted. Each side reveling in their party's short term pyrrhic victory

Who will win in the short term is yet to be determined, but it is almost certain that our current trajectory will end us in ruin.

 

You are not disagreeing with me on binding. They are not binding because they aren't laws. They are norm. There isn't a disagreement here, unless you think they aren't norm.

It may be a slippery slope, but it's not necessary that. It's already surely a new norm. The next time a SCJ seat is open while the president has one, or maybe two, or maybe the full 4 years of a lame duck session left, the opposing party in the Senate can follow the new norm of denying any consideration in an gamble to steal the seat. That's a real concrete consequences due to the initial unethical and immoral act of stealing. And as I have suggested, if the DEM obtain power, they can deny all considerations of Trump's SCJ nominee and would be more justified in doing so giving the current investigation. The slippery slope is IF the DEM does that and is successful, it would be a tool to be used by future generation through endless Congressional investigations of the president.

Stealing a SCJ seat is acceptable because the stake is too high. This stance can be repeated over and over in other areas and we end up with a quite unethical government (and we are there now). That's exactly why being ethical in government is important.

You can use other terms. But the end result is the same. Under norm, Garland would have been given full consideration and there was enough time for him to be confirmed. He was denied any consideration, the GOP won the Presidency, maintain Senate power and was able to get their own pick in that seat. The GOP was successful at stealing a SCJ seat.

 

What the Republicans are doing, hiding the conversations that Kavanaugh had with Bush that would reveal how hyper partisan he is and how much of a political hack with disturbing views - in order to get him through confirmation - will go down in history.

GOP has to be careful here - they may be doing irreversible damage to their brand.

 

It's all over but the screamin'

And boy will the liberals scream and holler. It's all they've got.

...but, just wait until Ginsburg is replaced by Trump!

 

If Trump is going to replace Ginsburg, then she better hurry up and die because he doesn’t have much time.

 

Why not while they have full control just impeach Sotomeyer. Impeach Kagen. Slip something into RBG’s drink. I mean she’s dead anyways to you guys. I’ve never seen so much glee over someone dying really really soon.

Then replace with more Federalist society partisans?

I mean if norms don’t matter just give up the shtick and seize the unbridled power you think your party deserves. It’s just “Norms”.

Or what about just replacing the USSC entirely every time we get a new president. What about a new constitution too while we are at it!!

 

I guess you were sleeping during the period of time after Scalia's death.

 

Nice whataboutism with a mix of admission of rooting for someone to die. Nice job.

Go find a post where I said anything gleefully about Scalia dying before he was ever sick, or close to being on his death bed.

 

pretty sure that ship has sailed

 

arguably this is what happened to Robert Bork, only difference is that the Democratic-controlled Senate judiciary gave Reagan's nominee actual hearings before Borking him.

good piece on Bork: https://www.city-journal.org/html/robert-bork-16039.html

 

doesn't sound like that is actually what is happening. here's a more detailed explanation, cannot vouch for all the details here but if the author's account is at least reasonably accurate, this analysis demonstrates how Schumer's hyperbole is unjustified

https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/dems-latest-documents-hullabaloo/

 

yes

 

now, what part of his analysis/opinion piece do you disagree with and/or otherwise find fault with?

 

This is the first time in history that executive privilege has been used to prevent info about a Supreme Court Nominee being given to the Senate. First time.

Let's remember that this is info that Kavanaugh gave to Bush, and yet Trump is the one invoking executive privilege - not Bush, and not the Justice Department.

So yes, it is unprecedented and your opinion piece is just that, a right wing opinion piece that favors pushing through a very conflicted right-wing SCOTUS nominee.

Fair minded Republicans need to fight this.