My opinion on filling Supreme Court vacancies close to an election

[redbeer]

Not quite true. When the shoe was on the other foot, noting that Dems did not nuke the filibuster for SCOTUS appointments, and they sure as hell could have, it took several votes from the other side to confirm a SCOTUS appointment. Unlike republicans, given that a supreme court justice is appointed for life, and that his votes can have a profound effect on Americans for a long time, dems believed that that important of a decision should be bipartisan. We wouldn't have waited, but several of your party would have weighed in on the appointment. That's no longer true, Repubs dont' give a damn any more, about what the left thinks. They nuked the filibuster for Scotus nominations.

But, republicans are comfortable making such an important decision with no participation from the other side, which is why they nuked the filibuster for SCOTUS appointments. They did it as a tit for tat for Reid's nuking the filibuster for federal bench appointments, but Reid had no choice. Fed judges were overworked, and judgeships had to be filled, and Senate repubs were, because of the filibuster, were blocking via filibusters all fed bench nominations en masse. The only way Obama could get judges was to nuke the filibuster for fed bench nominations. But, When republicans took over the senate, they blocked ALL bench appointments and at that point, of course, Reid's move backfired. But, filibuster or not, Obama was not to get his judges because of republicans playing power grab and not doing their job. They think that grabbing power is their job. That is not what the founding fathers had in mind at all.

Trump likes to brag his record of appointments is 'historic' totally ignorant of the fact that the only reason he has been allowed to make that many appointments is because McConnell blocked, en masse, all appointments by Obama, leaving those positions open. then they have the gall to think that, because they won the house, that they have a 'mandate'. No, more people voted for dems in the house and senate, but due to three factors:

1. Historically speaking, democrats tend to be lazy and not vote during off presidential vote years. It's a sad, but true fact ( though the right has woken us up, of late )
2 The districts which send congresspersons to the house , have been gerrymandered in favor of republicans.
3. The 2 senators per state system, over time and the evolution of the urban states, now favors republicans. The forefathers were unable to foresee this.

They are able to wrestle control.

That they controlled the house and senate during Obama was NOT because it was the 'will of the people' it was due to the will of a minority ( older folks mainly, who vote republican ) who are far more likely to vote during off president years.

Well, as of 2018, dems have been woken up. We are voting a lot more now, and the right is going to feel our collective wrath, as there are far more of us than there are of them.

Republicans ( excluding the Lincoln repubs ) are not about democracy, they don't give a damn about 'bipartisanship' , they are interested in one thing and one thing only, power. Naked power. The will of the people be damned.

2,868,676 more votes were cast for a democrat president in 2016, 17,537,638 more votes were cast for democrats in the senate in 2018, and 9,710,275 more votes were cast for democrats in the house in 2018, Biden is ahead nationally by several points. These incontrovertible facts prove that democrats, overall, have the message that the public favors, but republicans don't give a damn.

Because the democrats have been stuffing our schools and universities with liberal, even radical teachers and professors indoctrinating our children for over two generations, along with their massive propaganda machine, the MSM.....thus why the more votes. We can see this power they have created everyday on the news with these young liberal radical lunatics en masse destroying our cities. They have no center, no heart, as it's all about destroying this nation and turning it into a socialist utopia. It is the left, who have a huge lust for power, which is damaging our country. Come November, we will see these people, once again cry and whine, wondering how the hell did we get beat again......there is an even larger group of people who have not been skewered by the left.

 

[redbeer]

This is your modern day Republican party. Anyone who doesn't understand that them and their culture need to be grounded down into dust is fooling themselves.

All you people have are "false talking points", "ludicrous conspiracies", and now "threats"......The American People will NOT stand for such things....and you will see this being clearly evident come November.

 

[bluesmoke]

In short, I'm for it. If there's a vacancy close to an election, the president is still in office at that time, and has every right to exercise his or her powers to the last day they're in office. It's normal politics for them to want to get to select a justice, and even though it is a lifetime appointment, they were elected and there's nothing really wrong with it.

But, since Republican stole a seat so egregiously in 2016, with bad and dishonest arguments we knew were lies but are now proven lies, they owe Democrats a seat - just because of hypocrisy and justice, they need to be held to their behavior in 2016, and not get to appoint this Justice.

Democrats should do basically anything they can to make sure that happens, though it's very difficult. Any voters with any patriotism or morals should vote out any who do not in November. Republican voters have shamed themselves badly with their naked pursuit of power at any cost, including voter suppression, buying elections by special interests, and stunts like the Supreme Court theft.

I'd like to see Republicans not get to appoint this vacancy, and for Biden to appoint it, and then to return to normalcy where the president gets to appoint it any time they're in office (short of extreme situations like a vacancy on January 19 the day before leaving office). Otherwise, it's baseless, made-up limits - and McConnell was openly talking about plans to block Hillary all four years as I recall.

A bigger problem is the risk of the lame duck period - imagine trump and the Republican Senate voted out, knowing they're voted out, with over two months left. Imagine a Republican House. They could do practically anything corrupt during that period, not caring about the people's wishes even more than they usually don't, with no election issues, happy to spite the voters who voted them out.

It's not quite clear what to do about that issue. There are 'norms' and 'decency' to politicians respecting the voters' choice, but it's clear those don't exist for Republicans.

I'm for the Dems expanding the court. Moscow Mitch started this fight. I hope the Dems have some fight in them. They haven't shown much for quite a few yrs now.

 

[Master Debator]

All you people have are "false talking points", "ludicrous conspiracies", and now "threats"......The American People will NOT stand for such things....and you will see this being clearly evident come November.

More Americans have voted against Republicans in the past two decades than for them. You've only won the popular vote twice since. Your belief in what the American people want is based in ignorance.

 

[Athanasius68]

I've thought the supreme court should be expanded since Thomas was approved for the court.
I never understood why the courts right under the supreme court had so many more justices than the supreme court.
I remember the bruh ha over that guy and said why is there only 9?
Now I know that it's a norm not a law. I say let's start adding.
I heard Trump today say Obama gave him 182 (I think that was the number) judges. It just reminded me of how dirty mitch has been playing for a while.

I'm all for expanding the court up to the number of the court directly beneath the supreme court. I'm also for a law that states no judges at all within 90 days of any presidential or senate election excluding special elections.
If the court is kept at 9 I'm in favor of a law also that says no supreme without at least 60 votes, no rule a law
We used to be able to agree on at least the supreme court now everything is 50 +1.
If we keep it at 9 then any judge with less than 60 gets to either resign, retire or be removed.

There can't be a law with regards to time frames on appointing judges and justices-- the power to nominate and to confirm is expressly granted the Constitution, and Congress can't infringe upon that. The House can't infringe on president power to appoint a nominee, nor the Senate to confirm a nominee, which would be required for there to be a law.

We haven't "agreed" on nominees since the Bork debacle of '87.

 

[Elmo]

The Republicans owe nothing. They were in charge of the Senate at the time, and were well within their right to block a lefty from being seated on the Supreme Court. Are you seriously saying the Dems wouldn't have done the same thing? Please.

Yes, they were within their right to vote against an entirely qualified nominee (earned 76-23 support when nominated for circuit court). Of course, they took the coward's way out and refused to even go on record with a vote, or verbalize specific concerns. That too was within their rights. They COULD have simply told Obama, Garland, and millions of voters who wanted a vote to "**** off". Instead of being honest about their partisanship, they spewed endless moralizing bullshit. They claimed they were doing what was "right", making a principled stand to give voters a chance to weigh in. They claimed they were only doing this because it was an election year, and they would have behaved the same for a Republican president. Seriously, go read the quotes I posted earlier in this thread. Proven lies and blatant hypocrisy from so many prominent senators. I'm not disputing their right to do what they did, I'm just disgusted by the lies they felt the need to tell to the American people.

 

[Craig234]

More Americans have voted against Republicans in the past two decades than for them. You've only won the popular vote twice since. Your belief in what the American people want is based in ignorance.

Twice? In the last *thirty* years, Republicans have won the popular vote once. 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016 all went to Democrats. 2004 was Bush.

 

[Craig234]

I'm for the Dems expanding the court. Moscow Mitch started this fight. I hope the Dems have some fight in them. They haven't shown much for quite a few yrs now.

Though they did impeach trump.

 

[Craig234]

The founding fathers never imagined a Senate, a group of noble and learned men, they thought, would be so low that they would engage in a petty partisan move whereby one party would cling to power so much so as not to allow a sitting president to nominate a judge, and deny him or her, who well deserved, at the minimum, a hearing ( where the actual 'advise and consent' takes place ) and a vote.

They didn't imagine that in the future, the caliber of the Senate would decline so much, that they should have 'defined' more clearly, what they meant by 'advise and consent'. Had they the ability to foresee such a Senate, they most surely would have, in my view.

It begs the question" Why no hearing and vote? The Senators know Garland. they know he's qualified, and so, with a hearing and a vote, they'd have to look him in the eye and vote against him, and they KNOW that if they gave a hearing, they would not be able to look him in the eye and say 'you're not qualified". They didn't give him a hearing and a vote because they lack spine and integrity. By not giving a hearing and a vote they prove, incontrovertibly, they are cowards. And, we now can add 'colossal hypocrites' to that list of adjectives.

The history is on Republicans' side, unfortunately. Historically, there have been 29 times an opening was in the last year or lame duck; in all 29, presidents made appointments; in nearly all the other party had the Senate they were not approved, and in nearly all the same party had the Senate they were confirmed.

It's the norm for the opposing party Senate to deny a seat late in a presidency. What was different in 2016 was the lack of hearings, and the Republicans lying about their reason. That's bad, but the result is the same either way, whether they had voted no or denied the hearings. They are only caring about power - but the actual results are the norm in American history. It was politics - but they were dishonest about it.

 

[Craig234]

Anyone who believes this wouldn't be the same situation on either side is not being honest with themselves.

I think it's unlikely Democrats would have denied hearings, and lied about the reasons. I did find that Republicans found a quote from an Obama counsel saying she would have advised Democrats to do what McConnell did.

 

[Middle_Ground]

There can't be a law with regards to time frames on appointing judges and justices-- the power to nominate and to confirm is expressly granted the Constitution, and Congress can't infringe upon that. The House can't infringe on president power to appoint a nominee, nor the Senate to confirm a nominee, which would be required for there to be a law.

We haven't "agreed" on nominees since the Bork debacle of '87.

Okay but doesn't the constitution also say the senate shall advise and consent. So your saying there can be no law for the Senate where they can't consent on any judges for 90 days from an election?

And I believe your wrong on the date since we haven't "agreed" Kennedy, Souter, Breyer & Ginsberg prove the Bork theory wrong.

 

[Deuce]

Because the democrats have been stuffing our schools and universities with liberal, even radical teachers and professors indoctrinating our children for over two generations, along with their massive propaganda machine, the MSM.....thus why the more votes. We can see this power they have created everyday on the news with these young liberal radical lunatics en masse destroying our cities. They have no center, no heart, as it's all about destroying this nation and turning it into a socialist utopia. It is the left, who have a huge lust for power, which is damaging our country. Come November, we will see these people, once again cry and whine, wondering how the hell did we get beat again......there is an even larger group of people who have not been skewered by the left.

This is adorable because the GOP is the minority party. More people vote Democrat. More People wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. More people voted for Democrats in the House. Blue states send more dollars to the federal government than they take in. That map of “sea of red” Trump and his supporters like to parade around, red/blue colored inexplicably by county? The blue areas represent more people, and represent two-thirds of the nation’s GDP. Liberals are carrying your asses in virtually every single way. Conservatives hold power solely through anti-Democratic measures found in our constitution and in our laws. The deck is stacked in favor of the GOP and that’s the only reason they haven’t been completely crushed already. That, and their consistent efforts to make sure as few people as possible are able to vote.

 

[OscarLevant]

Whether democrat or republican, both parties will confirm a presidential nominee, when only one party is holding both offices

???, that makes no sense.

......both democrat, for sure confirm a justice.....both republican, for sure confirm a justice. Why on earth do you think the republicans are going to give up the chance on picking a justice to the Supreme Court? In 2016, it was a democratic president with a republican senate.....it's not that way, today. So, your talking point is moot and meaningless.

NO, I didn't think they will, but they are hypocrites, given that they told us, regarding Garland, 10 months before there was an election and a nominee, that 'the public should decide'. Of course, they don't want the public to decide now, 40 days out. They have a double standard. They only want the 'public to decide' when it is their candidate who is nominated. If it is a democrat who is nominated, or will be nominated, they want to decide if they are the majority in the Senate. I guess a thing called integrity is too much to ask of our Republican senators.

And, no, if the shoe were on the other foot, repubs argue 'we'd do the same'. Well, when the shoe WAS on the other foot, a SCOTUS appointment required 2/3 majority vote, meaning we couldn't get a judge appointed without their input, that's what it was WHEN the shoe WAS on the other foot. So, that argument is bullshit.

They are colossal hypocrites. Those who deny the republican senators are hypocrites are gullible as hell for accepting the word of hypocrites.

 

[Craig234]

This is adorable because the GOP is the minority party. More people vote Democrat. More People wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. More people voted for Democrats in the House. Blue states send more dollars to the federal government than they take in. That map of “sea of red” Trump and his supporters like to parade around, red/blue colored inexplicably by county? The blue areas represent more people, and represent two-thirds of the nation’s GDP. Liberals are carrying your asses in virtually every single way. Conservatives hold power solely through anti-Democratic measures found in our constitution and in our laws. The deck is stacked in favor of the GOP and that’s the only reason they haven’t been completely crushed already. That, and their consistent efforts to make sure as few people as possible are able to vote.

Not just the House, but the Senate. Americans voted 58%-38% for Democrats for the Senate, but the Senate has a 53-47 Republican majority.

A reminder about our 'democracy': we have minority rule

Republicans will be very self-righteous about the power they have by controlling the US Senate, about to force a radical plutocrat Justice onto the Supreme Court most of the country oppose. So let's remember how legitimate that power is. Using the most recent election as an example, 2018 -...

debatepolitics.com

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

Lol, yeah I didn't think so, because all the democrats have done is complain about Trump, while they are inviting others to Chinatown during a pandemic and permitting planes to enter the USA from China, during a pandemic which originated in Wuhan, China. Doesn't it get old to be on the losing side?

The Democrats should complain about Trump. The mother ****er has allowed 200,000 Americans to die and he hasn't done a ****ing thing except ignore COVID-19.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

Anyone who believes this wouldn't be the same situation on either side is not being honest with themselves.

That's not the point. The point is that McConnell and the Republicans are violating the bullshit rule that they established in 2016 -- no Supreme Court nominees in an election year. As ****ing hypocritical as it gets.

 

[Craig234]

The Democrats should complain about Trump. The mother ****er has allowed 200,000 Americans to die and he hasn't done a ****ing thing except ignore COVID-19.

He's also committed crimes and greatly increased inequality and plutocracy with the Republicans' tax cut for the rich, and his fight to destroy the ACA will reach the (his) Supreme Court soon.

 

[Athanasius68]

Okay but doesn't the constitution also say the senate shall advise and consent. So your saying there can be no law for the Senate where they can't consent on any judges for 90 days from an election?

And I believe your wrong on the date since we haven't "agreed" Kennedy, Souter, Breyer & Ginsberg prove the Bork theory wrong.

In order to pass a 'law' it would require the cooperation of the House and the president-- which would remove the power of the Senate to confirm.
The Senate can pass its own rule on the subject as there is no requirement that the Senate consent to a nomination.

 

[Rucker61]

No, the GOP will ram through a nominee before the election. Seating a judge on the Supreme Court in a lame duck session would just further show how opportunistic and hypocritical they are. It's the worst of the three options.

The Republicans recognize that long term conservative majority SCOTUS is more important than holding Congress, the Senate or the White House.
The Democrats recognize that long term liberal majority SCOTUS is more important than holding Congress, the Senate or the White House.

 

[trixare4kids]

The Republicans recognize that long term conservative majority SCOTUS is more important than holding Congress, the Senate or the White House.
The Democrats recognize that long term liberal majority SCOTUS is more important than holding Congress, the Senate or the White House.

Can't speak for anyone else, but as a conservative who believes judges must rule from the bench, that's the way I view it.

 

[Middle_Ground]

In order to pass a 'law' it would require the cooperation of the House and the president-- which would remove the power of the Senate to confirm.
The Senate can pass its own rule on the subject as there is no requirement that the Senate consent to a nomination.

Okay so yes the Congress both houses can decide it's in everyone's best interest to have a law for the senate to not confirm any judges 90 days from an election and whatever president that's in office can sign it. Rules no longer apply in the Congress so there mute.

 

[redbeer]

???, that makes no sense.



NO, I didn't think they will, but they are hypocrites, given that they told us, regarding Garland, 10 months before there was an election and a nominee, that 'the public should decide'. Of course, they don't want the public to decide now, 40 days out. They have a double standard. They only want the 'public to decide' when it is their candidate who is nominated. If it is a democrat who is nominated, or will be nominated, they want to decide if they are the majority in the Senate. I guess a thing called integrity is too much to ask of our Republican senators.

And, no, if the shoe were on the other foot, repubs argue 'we'd do the same'. Well, when the shoe WAS on the other foot, a SCOTUS appointment required 2/3 majority vote, meaning we couldn't get a judge appointed without their input, that's what it was WHEN the shoe WAS on the other foot. So, that argument is bullshit.

They are colossal hypocrites. Those who deny the republican senators are hypocrites are gullible as hell for accepting the word of hypocrites.

Coming from a liberal, leftist, democrat.....now that is ironic.

 

[redbeer]

The Democrats should complain about Trump. The mother ****er has allowed 200,000 Americans to die and he hasn't done a ****ing thing except ignore COVID-19.

Now, that is NOT the truth.....but once again, what have the democrats done to fight this pandemic???

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

Now, that is NOT the truth.....but once again, what have the democrats done to fight this pandemic???

Who is the President? Are there 50 Presidents in this country? What's your bullshit point?

Trump lied to YOU. He told Bob Woodward the virus was deadly, and then lied to the whole country about it.

During the Repug Convention in 2016, Trump said he was the only one who could fix this country's problems. Trump, no one else. So why the **** do you keep whining about the Democrats?

 

[redbeer]

Who is the President? Are there 50 Presidents in this country? What's your bullshit point?

Trump lied to YOU. He told Bob Woodward the virus was deadly, and then lied to the whole country about it.

During the Repug Convention in 2016, Trump said he was the only one who could fix this country's problems. Trump, no one else. So why the **** do you keep whining about the Democrats?

I am not whining, just simply asking you a question......Trump is not the only politician with power and influence in this country, don't you know?....so, tell me, what have the democrats done to fight this pandemic?.....you really don't know?