Filibuster Gorsuch, Please
Filibuster Gorsuch, Please
Schumer Ready To Force Nuclear Confrontation Over Gorsuch
3/23/17
Supreme Court: After Judge Neil Gorsuch spent 20 hours demonstrating that he is abundantly qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, Democrats announced plans to filibuster his nomination. Good luck with that.
By all accounts, Gorsuch put in a stellar performance in his confirmation hearing. Even the New York Times conceded that "if Democrats harbored any hope of raising doubts about Judge Gorsuch among Republicans, they came nowhere close."
But as soon as the hearing ended, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he was going to filibuster the nomination anyway.
Gorsuch, Schumer said, "was groomed by the Federalist Society and has shown not one inch of difference between his views and theirs."
We understand that Schumer is just trying to appease his party's far-left, Trump-loathing base. But think about this strategy for a minute.
At best, Gorsuch is simply a status quo appointment. Nothing changes. The court will remain split, with the left if anything holding the advantage. Even with Scalia, conservatives lost many of the most hotly contested court cases. It's also possible that Gorsuch will end up disappointing conservatives at some point, as have many other "conservative" justices in the past.
Democrats also know that they have zero chance of blocking Gorsuch's appointment.
Either enough of their members will join Republicans to end the filibuster — in which case Schumer and company will only have succeeded in looking petty and vindictive — or they will lose the filibuster altogether.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already indicated that, if necessary, he will change the Senate rules so that Supreme Court nominations can't be filibustered, just as his predecessor, Harry Reid, had done for other presidential appointments when Democrats controlled the Senate.
The rub for Democrats is that the next opening on the court is almost certainly going to be among one the liberal justices. If Democrats pointlessly sacrifice the filibuster on Gorsuch, they will have freed Trump to pick another conservative and shift the balance of the court.
Make no mistake, we would welcome a more conservative Supreme Court — by which we mean one that sticks to interpreting the Constitution rather than finding emanations of penumbras in it. But it's unlikely that Democrats will be happy when they see the consequences of such a shortsighted decision.
Just a few weeks ago, Democrats — including Schumer — were lamenting the fact that Reid had jettisoned the filibuster now that Republicans controlled the Senate and the White House. Thanks to Reid, Trump was free to appoint the most conservative cabinet in modern times.
Are they so blinded by anti-Trump hysteria that they are going to make the same mistake twice?
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End The Fake Filibuster http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/filibuster-gorsuch-please/
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I disagree the nuclear option will come back to bite you in the behind eventually. If they can't get 60 votes they need a new nominee. Let's not be as short sighted as the liberals were in cheering BO's expansion of presidential powers.
If Gorsuch can be filibustered, no non-liberal can ever nominated by a Republican will ever be confirmed.
Besides, Reid already killed the filibuster. The democrats will formally get rid of it as soon as they control the Presidency and the Senate. The precedent has been set.
Yep. The Democrats have no valid reason to filibuster him. As such, the Republicans will be forced to finish Reid's dismantling of Senate rules. The Dems are placing party over nation again.
They need to pressure the democrats to realize that if they force a nuclear option on Scalias seat that the option would apply to the next three seats that could come open during Trumps term(s). They might want to save the filibuster for a Gorsuch replacing Ginsburg which really would change the balance on the court.
They'd rather appease the radical element of their constiuency than actually think ahead.