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Let me follow up about the comment TPM Reader HS got when she called the office of her state’s senior senator, Alex Padilla. She called insisting there should be some kind of investigation into the Justice Alito flag controversy. When HS got through to Padilla’s office on the second try, a staffer told her they hadn’t yet been briefed yet on whether Padilla had a position on the issue. In response to that piece, another reader pointed me to this article from this morning in Politico.
That article says there’s a split between Senate Democrats on the issue, with Durbin and most of his Judiciary Committee colleagues, including Sen. Peter Welch, saying Alito is clearly lying and should recuse himself but also thinking that hearings are not worth having. While he doesn’t say so directly, Durbin’s attitude seems to be he’s lying and he should recuse but he’s not going to so whatever. Senators Whitehouse and Padilla support holding a hearing. According to Politico, Padilla would like to see an investigation. “There’s no way he was unaware,” Politico quotes Padilla as saying.
This other reader told me our piece was wrong. You’re going by what a constituent heard, says this other reader, but Padilla says he supports an investigation right there in Politico.
I disagree. It’s great that Padilla says that. Or better than him saying the opposite like Durbin. But it’s totally low energy and mostly doesn’t count.
What you choose to brief your staff on is a much better indicator of how much attention you’re giving to an issue than an offhand comment to Politico. Whitehouse at least put together a statement for Politico. You’ll note: I didn’t say what Padilla’s position was. I said it was Low Energy and that’s 100% what it is. TPM Reader HS didn’t get any answer at all. If you’re focused on it you’re going to brief your staff who are talking to constituents. It’s a matter of focus. Not seeing the importance of that is classic SenateBrain.
And let me be clear on another point. I’m not trying to pick on Alex Padilla. Alex Padilla isn’t the reason why the Alito thing is basically allowed to be dropped. But this is an example of why stuff like this does drop. I think the chances of Sam Alito recusing himself from any of these cases is effectively whatever the Kelvin equivalent of 0% is. But that isn’t a reason to let the matter drop. That’s classic policy literalism. There should be an investigation. There should be everything. Because that’s how politics works. Things break through and you actually have an effect when you make noise, when you push on doors. We shouldn’t even be talking about it as a flag controversy. We need to investigate Alito’s support for the Jan. 6th coup attempt and demand he recuse himself from any case tied to the coup attempt. Why would you ever talk about it in a way that doesn’t make clear what you’re talking about or why it matters?
Harrumph.