9/25/20
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, delights in confirming Republican-nominated jurists. District courts, appeals courts, most especially the Supreme Court — he wants to fill them all. In fact, with his party’s having largely given up on legislating in recent years, this may be what Mr. McConnell regards as his main duty. It is certainly the part at which he excels. But for Mr. McConnell to keep this job, his party must keep control of the Senate. And that challenge got considerably more ulcer-inducing with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week. As has been noted, Mr. McConnell finds himself in the rare situation where his two loves — holding power and confirming judges — are in tension. One early data point that has Democrats feeling good: money. Since Justice Ginsburg’s death, contributions have come pouring into progressive groups and individual campaigns at a level that political veterans say is unlike anything they’ve ever seen. ActBlue, which focuses on small-dollar donations, pulled in more than $100 million last weekend. For some of Mr. McConnell’s members, the focus on the courts could be a lifeline — for others, a millstone. The most likely casualties are Cory Gardner in Colorado and Susan Collins in Maine. These blue-state Republicans were already having trouble convincing independents and moderates that they aren’t Trump tools while not alienating their base voters, who expect them to be precisely that.
Not that Mr. McConnell had a choice. In the midst of all the handicapping, the confirmation drama should serve as a reminder that ideas still matter in politics — though perhaps not in the way one would think. Republican voters have long been motivated, far more than Democrats, by a hunger to shift the courts in their direction. This is partly because of conservative opposition to abortion and the desire to see Roe v. Wade overturned. They are increasingly counting on conservative jurists to take their side in the culture wars and save them from the horrors of modernity (i.e. becoming the racial/ethnical minority). Republican lawmakers recognize that the party’s policy positions, what few it has left, anyway, tend to lack broad appeal. As the Republican commentator Amanda Carpenter observed on “The Bulwark Podcast” this week, over the past decade, Republicans gave up on consensus building and doing “the hard work of passing laws,” and instead are aiming to “have the courts solve our problems.” Even with total control of the government, Republicans failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, which they had been promising for years. Instead, they have kicked it to the courts to dismantle. Republicans understand that ideas matter. They also know that having apparently run out of appealing ones, they must find other ways to exert power. For them, these court fights are increasingly a matter of political life and death.