GOP REFUSED TO TALK TO OBAMA’S SCOTUS NOMINEE: THEY NOW WANT THEIR MAN “FAST-TRACKED!”

…President Obama’s choice for the US Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland

 

After his nomination, out of respect, Judge Gorsuch’s first call was to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. 

 

Well, the novice president Trump really showed how new he is to politics when he said to the Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY), “Mitch, if the Democrats give you any trouble by blocking Judge Neil Gorsuch’s US Supreme Court nomination, if you can, go nuclear.”

 

He really is saying, if there any problem at all, Republican senators should change the rules of the senate body to permit the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee with a simple majority vote.  He’s not thinking strategically, like when after the mid-terms, if the senate should go back to the Democrats? 

 

By urging Senate Majority Leader McConnell and his fellow Republicans to “go nuclear,” Trump meant they should break the Senate’s long-standing tradition of requiring a bipartisan supermajority to change the chamber’s rules.  This would allow the governing party to change the rules and allow the nominees to be confirmed by that simple majority of senators. Some Republican senators have said such a move would be a total desperation measure that is not to be taken lightly.  The Republicans majority in the Senate is not even close to as safe as it is in the House. 

 

It must be understood that the only reason that the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to change the rules to a “simple majority for federally appointed lower level judges” was because, for President Obama’s two terms, the Republicans had stayed in lock-step to oppose everything Obama tried to do.  This grid-lock prevented hundreds to thousands of needed judges and other positions to be left empty just because the Republicans were against anything the Democratic president wanted, even if it was for helping the American public.

 

So far, the Democrats haven’t returned in kind, that grid-lock approach to the new Republican president.  But it does explain why the Dems are giving the cabinet appointees a tough time for achieving approval.

 

A partisan battle has already been underway that will decide the fate of Judge Gorsuch.  The Republicans have rallied around him while some Democrats have voiced heavy skepticism. Of course, as usual Trump’s comments just inject fresh uncertainty into that fight.  Speaking with conservative activists supporting the nomination during a White House meeting as Gorsuch held a series of Senate meetings, Trump made his comment that if there is gridlock, “Mitch should go nuclear!”

 

Trump has inserted himself once again into a complicated and many years-long dispute between senators that goes back to previous protracted confirmation fights over judicial appointments made by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

 

The White House has already asked that Gorsuch meet with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), but his aides said Schumer declined in order to learn more about the nominee’s record before they meet.

 

Republicans are hoping to confirm the US Appeals judge Gorsuch by early April, before a two-week Easter recess, which would clear the way for him to participate in the final cases of the court’s term ending in June.

 

But have they really forgotten how they treated the Democrats and their appointments and do they understand that the Dems are already ramping up their opposition efforts.

 

“We must insist upon a strong mainstream consensus candidate because this Supreme Court will be tried in ways that few courts have been tested since the earliest days of the republic,” Senate Minority Leader Schumer said Wednesday, adding later that “This administration [particularly the president] seems to have little regard for the rule of law and is likely to test the Constitution in ways it hasn’t been challenged in decades.”

 

Leader Schumer and several colleagues have declared that Gorsuch will need to earn at least 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles for a final confirmation vote. Today, Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate.  Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has already said: “I plan to stand up for individuals over corporations and oppose his nomination, and I will insist that his nomination meet a traditional 60-vote threshold,” and she was echoing the views of other liberal Democratic senators.

 

And there are some in the opposition party that are very upset at the way President Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland was treated by the GOP.  The Republicans in the Senate refused to even talk to him, or to give him a hearing and a finally vote, up or down.  He was basically ignored for over 1 year.

 

“I think he [Gorsuch] should not be treated as Obama’s nominee was treated, he should be given a hearing and a vote in committee,” said Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.).  “Let’s follow the process, let’s do what didn’t happen last year.”

 

Republican leaders have publicly tried to pressure Democrats for allowing Gorsuch a simple up-or-down vote without having to win a supermajority first. They have been agonizing, as they should, over whether they will have to change long-standing Senate rules to break any Democratic resistance, should it come to that point.

 

The GOP leaders are already feeling the heat from President Trump and those supporters yearning to add a conservative voice to the high court for the first time since George W. Bush’s presidency.

 

Most senators don’t know Judge Gorsuch as just 31 of them were in office in July 2006 when he was confirmed without opposition to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over all or parts of the eight western states.

 

Showing real class, after his nomination,  Judge Gorsuch’s first call was to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.  And he made it clear that he made the call “out of respect” for the horrible treatment that Judge Garland had to deal with.

 

After Judge Gorsuch’s meeting with the Senate Majority Leader, Vice President Pence walked Gorsuch around the Capitol, stopping in the Rotunda, where he took pictures with high school students who work as Senate pages.  Gorsuch, who grew up in Colorado and Washington, D.C., did once also serve as a Senate page.

 

On his way out of the Rotunda, a group of eighth-grade girls from a school in Bethesda waved and told him “congratulations.” He shook one of the girl’s hands and said: “Thank you very much. Someday you’ll be doing this.”

 

I wonder what Gorsuch knows that we don’t?

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017