In a Washington Post op-ed published on Monday night, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted Republicans who have called for the Senate to block President Obama’s nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away over the weekend.
Reid said that Senate Republicans’ “campaign of partisan sabotage” could have “potentially momentous consequences.”
“Republicans should not insult the American people’s intelligence by pretending there is historical precedent for what they are about to do. There is not,” he wrote.
The minority leader warned that blocking Obama’s nominee could set a dangerous precedent.
“Not only is that principle absurd on its face, but if we set that precedent now, there is nothing to stop future Senates from sliding further down that slippery slope,” he wrote. “It is a small and easily envisioned step to go from ‘no Supreme Court confirmations in this specific election year’ to ‘no confirmations in any election year.’ Our founders who envisioned a fair, bipartisan process must be rolling in their graves.”
“If we enshrine this precedent and declare a functioning Supreme Court optional, subordinate to the whim of the Senate majority, it is easy to envision a future where the Supreme Court is routinely crippled,” Reid continued.
Reid also said that by blocking an Obama nominee, Republicans would be “unconditionally surrendering their party to hard-line presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Donald Trump.”
“Behind closed doors, many of my colleagues complain about the direction their party has taken in recent years,” he wrote. “But if they cross this Rubicon, they will be as culpable as Sen. Cruz or Trump themselves, having resigned any claim to leadership and enlisting as foot soldiers in a radical effort to obstruct and delegitimize the president at all costs.”
Preaching to the choir here Senator Reid.But I think this is going to be one of those times where all of the people wont be fooled.
Of course NPR has already had Orrin Hatch on this morning saying it’s perfectly reasonable for the GOP to tell Obama not to make a nomination. We all know what he would say in the same interview if we had a republican president.
A conservative Justice would be a huge improvement! Scalia was a flagrant judicial activist, who practically called the plays like an offensive coordinator. The next justice simply cannot be sending partisan smoke signals, making it clear who to sue when and where, to achieve which result.
I hope the President takes the matter to the Supreme Court. I am confident that their opinion would not support McConnell’s Usurpation.
I do not think this would even be a precedent. This sort of thing rarely comes up if ever. There are rare instances of it happening, but even then they tend to go against what the GOP is saying. I mean Regan did something with a 47 year gap and nobody gnased their teeth too much.
It is a political move really. Their hope is to get their base going. As this justice is key to keeping the court conservative. So if they make a stand against a hated president, from their end anyway, the base may rise up. Their best case is keep control of the senate and get the presidency. And then basically pack the court with conservatives. The incentive for them to act is low unless they lose. Then they went from being able to potentially get a moderate (still shifting the slant of the court) to potentially a liberal if the Dems win the presidency and the senate. So they are playing roulet.
Reid is very right about what the Founders were going for initially. There are not restrictions based on time frame. The president has a job to put people on the court. The senate has their part in it too. Now, I think it would be better politics and make them look less like spoiled kids if the president nominated and then they voted down everyone for random reasons. At least they could say they are doing their job.
Not that their base cares. Really, getting people on the Court is going to be harder and harder in this sort of climate. I imagine that it would be hard for an uber conservative too that would deal with a Dem senate. You rarely get to put exactly who you want on there.
However, the president could play politics a bit the other way. Nominating qualified female African American candidates or similar would pretty much play into the narrative that the GOP is against anybody not white. Seems only fair.