Chuck Schumer in 2007: Senate Should Block Supreme Court Nominees for 18 Months

[Dos Equis]

[Dos Equis]

Biden Urged to Hold Off on Supreme Court Nominees in '92

Image: Biden Urged to Hold Off on Supreme Court Nominees in '92  (CSPAN via Twitter) 
By Greg Richter   |    Monday, 22 Feb 2016

CSPAN has uncovered video of then-Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 urging the Senate not to hold confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court in the final year of President George H.W. Bush's term because it could cause "deep trouble" for the institution.

CSPAN posted a clip of Biden's speech on Monday as Republicans and Democrats debate whether President Barack Obama should be able to name a replacement for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this month. The appointment of a more liberal jurist would swing the balance of the court for upcoming cases that would be decided on a close 5-4 split.
 
"It is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow or within the next several weeks or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not — and not — name a nominee until after the November election is completed, Biden, then a Delaware senator said from the Senate floor on June 25, 1992.

There was no vacancy on the Supreme Court at the time and the Senate was controlled by the Democratic Party. But if a vacancy did occur and Bush insisted on making a nomination, the Senate should refuse to act, Biden argued.

"It is my view that if the president goes the way of Presidents Filmore and Johnson, and presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over," Biden said.

"And I sadly predict, Mr. President, that this is going to be one of the bitterest, dirtiest presidential campaigns we will have seen in modern times," Biden said, noting that some likely would say he was making the statement only in the hopes that a Democrat won the presidency and was able to name the next justice.

"But that would not be our intention," Biden insisted, adding that if a nomination did come before the Senate the body should consider not holding hearings until after the election.

"Instead, it would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season was underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over," he said. "That is what is fair to the nominee, and essential to the process. Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution."

Biden's counsel in 1992 is not being heeded by current Democrats who argue the now Republican-controlled Senate should confirm an Obama nominee in timely fashion. Republicans have vowed to delay the process.

Biden, now vice president, suggested his boss will go with a judicial candidate already confirmed by Republicans at a lower level and that Republicans should confirm him or her.

"In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out — nor would it be his instinct, anyway — to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court," Biden told Minnesota Public Radio. "There are plenty of judges (who) are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans."

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/joe-biden-supreme-court-justice-nomination/2016/02/22/id/715579/#ixzz40wglX5rw

[Dos Equis]

McConnell: No Vote on Obama Court Nominee
Tuesday, 23 Feb 2016

Some senior U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved to slam the door shut on any Supreme Court nomination President Barack Obama will make as they voiced opposition to even committee hearings on a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

"That's the consensus view. ... No hearing, no vote," Senate Judiciary Committee member Lindsey Graham told reporters after leaving a private meeting of the panel's Republicans with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Separately, Senator John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican behind McConnell, said, "Correct," when asked by Reuters whether the path forward on any Obama nominee would be to deny that person a committee hearing.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley had previously left open the possibility of convening hearings once Obama nominates a justice. He was not immediately available for comment.

Earlier on Tuesday, in remarks on the Senate floor, McConnell said: "Presidents have a right to nominate, just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent. In this case, the Senate will withhold it."

Instead, McConnell said the Senate will await the outcome of November's presidential and congressional elections before considering any replacement for Scalia, who died on Feb. 13.

McConnell acknowledged Obama's constitutional right to offer a replacement for Scalia. But he said even Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, had argued back in 1992 for postponing action on Supreme Court nominees during an election year.

Senate Republicans were seizing on Biden's position more than two decades ago to bolster their argument for awaiting the selection of a new president before replacing Scalia.

"The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter after the American people finish making in November the decision they've already started making today," the Kentucky Republican added, referring to the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid condemned McConnell's attitude as "obstruction on steroids."

"Gone are the days of levelheadedness and compromise," the Nevada Democrat said.

Biden made the statements referenced by McConnell in 1992, when Biden was Senate Judiciary Committee chairman. Biden has said he was speaking hypothetically because there was no Supreme Court vacancy at the time.

Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, said Obama should nominate "the most qualified, the most confirmable, the most centrist candidate possible," to help convince more Republicans that they should at least consider the nominee. He noted that some Republicans, including Senator Mark Kirk, have already said the Senate should do so.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/senate-no-scotus-nominee/2016/02/23/id/715709/#ixzz411S9Xrdo

[Princess L]

[Dos Equis]

I wonder if Biden will be standing next to President Obama in the Rose Garden when he announces his pick?  Pretty blatant hypocrisy.   

[Dos Equis]

I’m a liberal lawyer. Clerking for Scalia taught me how to think about the law.
I wanted the job because I was eager to learn how someone so brilliant could see the world so differently than I did.
By Tara Kole
February 17, 2016

Tara Kole is a partner in the law firm of Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown, Inc. and a lecturer at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

When I was in law school, a Supreme Court clerkship was the Holy Grail. For me, it was clerking for Justice Antonin Scalia. Now that I’m a partner in a law firm that serves the notoriously progressive entertainment industry, the fact that I once clerked for Scalia often elicits looks of surprise from those sitting across from me, who ask if I’m the functional equivalent of a unicorn — a conservative in Los Angeles — a place that Scalia had amusingly warned me would “melt my brain.” I tell them, no, I’m politically liberal, but that my time working for the justice was one of the defining experiences of my life.

I’d heard all through law school that Scalia always hired one liberal clerk, though my sense is that this practice had waned in recent years. In fact, the process of applying for a Supreme Court clerkship entails applying to all nine justices — the notion being that justices choose clerks and not the other way around. But Justice Scalia was the person for whom I most wanted to work, not because we were ideologically aligned, but because we were not. It had to do with the way he was so deeply vilified — both personally, and as a jurist — by so many of my classmates. He was discussed in almost cartoonish fashion, conjuring images of twirled mustaches and barely-concealed devil horns. It was a time, just after Bush v. Gore and 9/11, when battle lines had been drawn, and it was politically correct to reject wholesale any belief that was not your own.

That approach made me uncomfortable, and I found myself becoming more and more interested in Justice Scalia’s work, eager to understand how someone so clearly brilliant could see the world so differently than I did. It’s why I took the job.

And, in some ways, the job is a strange one. To assist in the writing of opinions, clerks have to get inside a justice’s mind to think as they do and to write as they would. My role was to facilitate his, and sometimes that was easier than others. In one case I worked on writing a dissent — the position held by a minority of the court — with which I fundamentally disagreed on a moral level, but found, as I wrote, that I was drawn to Scalia’s reasoning; his emphasis on precedent, strict textual construction and judicial restraint. While I remain bound not to discuss details of the cases I worked on, I can say that Scalia’s arguments in that case conveyed a clarity not found in the majority’s opinion, which relied on legal and verbal gymnastics in order to reach the desired outcome. His approach had a logic and simplicity that resonated with me, despite my politics. I found myself able to get inside his mind in that moment, to sublimate my own views, and write confidently in his voice. I was proud when my co-clerk told me that Scalia had called it a “knock out.”

There were other days, though, where I found myself sitting on Scalia’s worn leather couch, looking up at Leroy — the mounted elk’s head that dominated the justice’s chambers — wondering how both Leroy and I had gotten there, as Scalia and my three conservative co-clerks all found common ground that I simply could not access. “You really think that?” and “That can’t be right,” were refrains I heard often in response to bench memos I prepared in advance of oral argument.

I’ll admit that I went back and forth between playing the part of contrarian and simply trying to give the justice the recommendations he was looking for. There were times I was pleased when he noted my penchant for disagreement. Once, when my co-clerk gave him a draft of an important opinion, Scalia nodded toward me, smiled and said, “Let’s give it to Mikey,” quoting the old Life cereal commercial, “She doesn’t like anything.” In those moments, I felt I had license to challenge Justice Scalia, and my arguments were always met with energetic debate and his eagerness to prove me wrong. At other times I simply wanted his approval, and for him to tell me that I was finally thinking “right” — which he meant with its full double-entendre.

I missed the mark a few times when I made assumptions about what Justice Scalia would think, based on his political leanings. In one particular criminal case, I tried to anticipate his reaction and gave him the analysis I thought he wanted. But when I suggested he might want to follow the more conventionally conservative line of thinking, he looked at me incredulously and said, “We can’t do that.” There was another case, where we were tasked with writing the majority opinion, when I saw him struggle and ultimately change his mind after realizing that the text of the statute would not support the position he initially wanted to take. That was the one time the Justice — who was very respectful of personal time and valued his own — called me on a weekend and asked me to come into chambers. As we worked through the case together, the power went out in our wing of the Court. Rather than taking a break, we moved our chairs and books into the hallway, using the natural light that came through the courtyard. This prompted Justice David Souter (who was famously averse to using modern technology, including, seemingly, the light bulb) to poke fun at our inability to read in dim light.

If there was a true surprise during my year clerking for Scalia, it was how little reference he made to political outcomes. What he cared about was the law, and where the words on the page took him. More than any one opinion, this will be his lasting contribution to legal thought. Whatever our beliefs, he forced lawyers and scholars to engage on his terms — textual analysis and original meaning. He forced us all to acknowledge that words cannot mean anything we want them to mean; that we have to impose a degree of discipline on our thinking. A discipline I value to this day.

Justice Scalia treated me with enormous respect and always seemed to value my opinion — a heady experience for someone just a year out of law school. I never felt as though he looked at me differently than my conservative counterparts; his trust felt implicit, which is, perhaps, why I struggled so much between wanting to challenge him and wanting to please. He was also, hands down, the smartest person I’ve ever known. What would take me weeks to understand would take him minutes to process. I’ll never forget my first experience handing him an opinion and watching him, in a matter of minutes, type a few lines into his typewriter (yes, a typewriter, even in 2004), and instantly cut to the heart of the issue in a way that I’d simply been unable to do. When I read his new draft, I realized that I’d tried too hard to bridge the difference between his opinion and that of another justice in order to hold our majority. His changes strengthened the argument but also, I feared, risked putting us in the dissent. But Justice Scalia didn’t compromise his principles, even on the smallest issues.

He knew his own mind, and taught me the importance of knowing my own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/17/im-a-liberal-lawyer-clerking-for-scalia-taught-me-how-to-think-about-the-law/?tid=a_inl

[Dos Equis]

Smart man.

GOP Gov. Sandoval says not interested in Supreme Court nomination
Published February 25, 2016
FoxNews.com

Feb. 20, 2016: Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval participates in the National Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington. (AP)


Thanks, but no thanks.

That was the answer Thursday from Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval following reports that President Obama was considering him as a potential nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy. Sandoval says he’s already told the White House he’s not interested.

“Earlier today, I notified the White House that I do not wish to be considered at this time for possible nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Sandoval said in a statement, adding he’s told key Senate leaders the same. “The notion of being considered for a seat on the highest court in the land is beyond humbling and I am incredibly grateful to have been mentioned.”

It remains unclear how serious the White House may have been about considering Sandoval.

The nomination of any Republican to the seat left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia would be seen as an attempt by Obama to break the Senate GOP blockade of any of his choices.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said his 54-member GOP caucus is opposed to holding confirmation hearings or a vote on Obama's pick, insisting that the choice rests with the next president.

Whether GOP senators would ease their opposition with a Republican nominee is an open question. But on the campaign trail, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton already had come out against the Sandoval nomination idea.

“There has been some talk maybe the president will nominate the Republican governor of Nevada. Now I love Nevada … and I know the governor has done some good things, but I sure hope the president chooses a true progressive who will stand up for the values and the interests of the people of this country,” she said earlier Thursday.

The White House still won’t confirm that Sandoval was under consideration.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama plans to meet next week with leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and “intensive consultation” on a nomination will continue.

Sandoval's communications director said Wednesday that the governor had not been contacted by the White House.

Sandoval met with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday in Washington while he was in town for a meeting of the National Governors Association. On Thursday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she thought it would be a good idea for President Obama to nominate a Republican.

Before Sandoval, 52, became the state's first Hispanic governor, he was the state's first Hispanic federal judge. He supports abortion. But liberal groups swiftly came out against the nomination idea.

"Nominating Sandoval to the Supreme Court would not only prevent grassroots organizations like Democracy for America from supporting the president in this nomination fight, it could lead us to actively encouraging Senate Democrats to oppose his appointment," said Democracy for America.

Limited to two terms, Sandoval's final term as governor expires in early 2019. He announced last year that he would not seek Reid's seat, in this November's election, a race in which Sandoval would have been a strong favorite.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/25/gop-gov-sandoval-says-not-interested-in-supreme-court-nomination.html?intcmp=hplnws

[Dos Equis]

Obama looking for 'consensus' pick to Supreme Court
By Kevin Liptak and Evan Perez, CNN
Mon March 14, 2016

Washington (CNN)—President Barack Obama is looking for a "consensus candidate" to nominate to the Supreme Court who could gain broad support from Democrats and Republicans, he said in an interview airing Monday on CNN.

"It is my intention to nominate somebody who has impeccable credentials, somebody who should be a consensus candidate, is deserving to be on the Supreme Court, and I will continue to challenge the Republicans in the Senate who suggest somehow that they don't have to do their job in providing that the nominee hearing and a vote," Obama told CNN en Español anchor Juan Carlos Lopez.

"I'm moving forward on interviewing candidates, and I will be making a determination soon," Obama said in the interview taped last week. While interviews for potential candidates were thought to be underway, Obama and his aides had previously refused to publicly comment.

Liberal groups have been closely communicating with the White House on strategy, including during meetings and conference calls that began the week after Justice Antonin Scalia died in mid-February.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have said they will not hold a hearing with the potential high court nominee, wishing to leave the decision to the next president. And the Republican National Committee is preparing to fight the pick as well.

Obama's announcement is expected as early as this week, pending final vetting on a small list of candidates for the high court. Sources have told CNN that three sitting federal appellate judges top the list: Sri Srinivasan and Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit, and Paul Watford, who serves on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

All three would fit Obama's description of a "consensus candidate" that previously have gained support from Republican senators, though Srinivasan was confirmed the most recently, in 2013, and with the broadest support from the GOP (he was confirmed unanimously).

In previous interviews and remarks, Obama hasn't said specifically that he's seeking a candidate with Republican appeal. At a news conference three days after Scalia's death, Obama told reporters that he wasn't necessarily going to name a moderate nominee. In multiple settings, Obama has said only that he's seeking candidates who have solid records, a respect for the court's role, and an ability to bring real-life experience to the bench.

Others in the administration, including Vice President Joe Biden, have pushed for a nominee that's previously enjoyed Republican support.

Speaking Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest indicated that Obama continued to review background material on potential candidates the weekend, but wouldn't give an indication of whether he's narrowed his shortlist.

"There's ample time for the President to make a decision and for the Senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to offer its advice and consent and still have the President's nominee seated on the Supreme Court before the next term starts," Earnest said.

White House outreach

The White House's outreach is coordinated by former White House staffer Stephanie Cutter, who has led sessions with grassroots groups designed to cement a strategy once a nominee is named. The beginnings of a pressure campaign have centered on select Republican lawmakers: Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has steadfastly refused to budge considering Obama's eventual nominee, along with a group of vulnerable Republicans up for reelection in November.

A source involved in the effort said the pressure campaign is designed to force the GOP to crack by the end of June -- before the party's nominating conventions and the August recess.

"The coordinated grassroots effort that has already proven a powerful tool to put pressure on Republicans will only ramp up," a former White House communications official who is helping coordinate the public roll-out of the President's nominee. "We will be mobilizing our network of allies in the states to promote the nominee, and to continue to pressure Republicans on their position of obstruction. That includes events in targeted states with real working Americans pushing Senate Republicans to do their jobs, press events with key Democratic members and groups, and coordinated validator pushes like those with the legal scholars, historians, law deans and attorneys general."

Obama's disclosure that he is seeking a "consensus candidate" fits into that strategy. If enough Republicans have previously supported Obama's pick for a lower court, the White House hopes to cast them as politically driven if they refuse to consider the name for the Supreme Court.

Liberal groups have already begun those efforts, including organizing rallies in senators' home states to advocate hearings for Obama's eventual nominee. Democratic activists rallied at courthouses in Iowa this weekend to urge Grassley, who represents the state, to reconsider his position staunchly opposing hearings for the Obama pick.

Difficulty getting Republican cooperation

But the White House's effort to find Republican lawyers willing to offer testimonials on behalf of a potential high court nominee has run into some hurdles, according to people close to the process. Some former clerks and legal colleagues who know the finalists have balked at the prospect of becoming part of a partisan fight over the nomination, they said.

The testimonials are part of the communications strategy of every nomination process, and typically White House officials and outside consultants providing assistance help prepare bipartisan voices to help bolster the case for a nominee.

In recent days, officials helping organize the testimonials have reached out to people who are known to have worked with potential nominees and who have Republican affiliations. The negative response from some shows the pressure building on both sides of the political aisle even before the president announces his pick.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on this point.

And Republicans are planning a coordinated effort to discredit Obama's nominee, led by the party's national committee. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said his "SCOTUS task force" would amount to "the most comprehensive judicial response effort in our party's history."

The strategy includes media appearances and opposition research on potential selections, as well as highlighting past statements from Democrats demonstrating support for withholding Supreme Court nominations in election years.

One conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, said it was spending six figures to lambast a potential nominee, Jane Kelly, in markets around the country. The ad hits the former public defender, who now serves on the federal bench, for representing a child molester.

Targeting Grassley

Democrats pushed back sharply on the depiction, calling on Grassley, the Judiciary panel chairman, and other Republicans to denounce the Kelly ad. Kelly serves on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is based in Iowa.

"It is an adult moment for Grassley to set the tone going forward that these kinds of tactics by his friends on the right are not welcome in this process -- a process that should be free of these type of political smears," said Brad Woodhouse, the president of the liberal group Americans United for Change.

Grassley will be a primary focus of Democratic pressure.

A Democrat challenging Grassley for his Senate seat, Patty Judge, has vowed to keep the issue at the forefront in her campaign against him. In other races around the country, including in New Hampshire and Alaska, the issue has similarly entered the campaign trail rhetoric. Activist groups are planning events in senators' home states during next week's congressional recess.

Grassley has shown little indication of backing down, facing equal pressure from conservatives to maintain his position. A person who met with Grassley recently said he pounded the table at one point to emphasize that he won't reconsider his stance.

The Democrats' effort will include leveraging law professors and experts who argue against allowing a seat to remain vacant on the Supreme Court for months. The latest came from Patricia Wald and John Gibbons, former chief judges of federal appeals court, who wrote in a letter to Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that a full component of judges "is essential to the Court's primary function of declaring what the law is in a rapidly moving society where crises frequently arise."

Depending on the outcome of the Republican primary, Obama's allies will also point to a potential Donald Trump nominee as the alternative -- a prospect that Republican senators, some of whom haven't even said they'll support Trump if he's the nominee, are loathe to embrace.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/14/politics/obama-supreme-court-interview-consensus/index.html

[240 is Back]

Is that the same Chuck Schumer that received 116,000 from trump, as late as 2009?

http://observer.com/2015/12/charles-schumer-wont-return-donations-from-donald-trump/

[Dos Equis]

Reactions to Garland Nomination
By  Sara Randazzo
—Associated Press


Is U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland a compromise pick for the U.S. Supreme Court or the most qualified candidate for the bench? Initial reactions were mixed Wednesday.

UC Irvine School of Law professor Rick Hasen, writing on Election Law Blog, calls it a compromise, saying “Garland is indeed a moderate, someone who will not excite the Democratic base the way other nominations would.” Judge Garland’s age, 63, almost 15 years senior to leading contender U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sri Srinivasan, could also be a factor, Mr. Hasen writes. “In short, Garland’s age, which may make some liberals oppose his nomination, may be precisely what is attractive to the President who actually wants to appoint someone to #SCOTUS, and not just put up the human pinata.”

Vikram Amar, a constitutional scholar at University of Illinois College of Law who has studied the confirmation process, said Judge Garland is better positioned than some of the other potential nominees to be “willing to be what might be a sacrificial lamb.” The chances of a confirmation going through seem slim, Mr. Amar said, and Republicans may worry about the optics of deviating from their stance of blocking a nominee now that it’s not a person of color. That said, “if they were to take a step back, this really is someone they should be open to.”

David Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer at Baker & Hostetler who worked in the White House during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said the confirmation process needs to be postponed until after the presidential election to preserve the “brittle” legitimacy of the Supreme Court. “The court has been relentlessly attacked for decades,” he said, and its approval rating is waning. “Having a confirmation process in the middle of an ugly presidential election battle is going to deliver another blow to the court’s legitimacy.”  As for Judge Garland, “he’s a perfectly credible nominee,” Mr. Rivkin said, but the confirmation process needs to wait.

Writing for the Volokh Conspiracy, Jonathan Adler from Case Western Reserve University School of Law said Judge Garland’s reputation for writing narrow opinions that rarely break new ground doesn’t give much of an indication of how he’d lean as a Supreme Court justice. “If Judge Garland is in the position to make precedent as opposed to following it, it’s harder to predict what path he would take,” Mr. Adler said in an interview. Mr. Adler predicts Judge Garland could be closer to the center than Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, said Judge Garland would “create a solid liberal majority on the court that could really run the tables on a laundry list of liberal agenda items.” She said the Republican Senate is correct to block the nomination, because their function is to be a check on a president who’s “been particularly disrespectful of the constitutional limits of his role.” The Senate is committed, she said, to “making sure the American people get a voice in who should select the next Supreme Court justice.”

UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Judge Garland, who he’s known since high school debate competitions, is “brilliant, he’s impeccably qualified, he has no liberal paper trail. He’s everything Obama would want as a consensus pick. I think what Obama has done is pick somebody that’s unassailable. Whatever professional qualifications would make one suitable for the Supreme Court, Merrick has: Harvard Law School, clerked on the Supreme Court, big firm practice, prosecutor, 20 years on the DC. circuit.”

Ethics and Public Policy Center President Edward Whelan, writing for National Review, said that while Judge Garland is “as good a nominee as anyone President Obama might plausibly have selected. …I believe that Garland would move the Court markedly to the Left and that Senate Republicans should and must adhere to their position that no nominee should receive Senate consideration before the election.”

In an interview, Seth Waxman, an appellate partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and former Solicitor General who’s known Judge Garland for decades, said: “He’s exceptionally modest and careful in everything that he does. He’s a consensus builder, and has a very keen analytic mind. When other judges are off in the summer taking their vacations, Merrick is in his chambers polishing his opinions.” As chief judge of a historically fractious D.C. Circuit, “Merrick has done a wonderful job to, I think, lower the temperature and promote the work of the court as a collegial institution,” he said.

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe said via email: “Judge Garland is a brilliant jurist whom I’ve admired ever since he was my constitutional law student. His modesty, humility, and moderation make him a particularly suitable choice for these divided times.”

Robert Schapiro, dean of Emory University School of Law, said by email: “Confirming Garland would avoid the risk of a younger, more liberal nominee from would-be President Hillary Clinton. …Republicans will be hard pressed to find any ground other than pure politics to block Garland’s confirmation.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/03/16/early-reactions-to-garland-nomination/

[Dos Equis]

MAY 19, 2005 | CLIP OF SENATE SESSION

Reid: No Duty To Give Nominees A Vote Sen. Harry Reid:

“The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.”

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4581302/reid-duty-give-nominees-vote

[TuHolmes]

I think they would get further with the people if they actually at least voted on it.

If you truly don't like the guy and refuse to confirm him, that's one thing, but at least vote.

I don't think being completely obstructionist is doing the party any favors, but that's just my opinion.

[Straw Man]

I think they would get further with the people if they actually at least voted on it.

If you truly don't like the guy and refuse to confirm him, that's one thing, but at least vote.

I don't think being completely obstructionist is doing the party any favors, but that's just my opinion.

x2

Both the POTUS and Congress have a duty to do their job and Repubs control the Senate so if they don't like they nominee they can just vote against him

They can even filibuster if they want to.  That fine within prevailing rules of the Senate

just do their fucking jobs

[240 is Back]

MAY 19, 2005 | CLIP OF SENATE SESSION

Reid: No Duty To Give Nominees A Vote Sen. Harry Reid:

“The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.”

http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4581302/reid-duty-give-nominees-vote

Sooooooooooooo

harry Reid is a liberal piece of shit...

OR Harry reid is a credible law scholar whose words should be used as precedent a decade later.  When convenient.

I love how repubs tear down these worthless libs 24/7... UNTIL they find something they agree with from 1992, and then it's suddenly "oh, let's all follow the Biden Doctrine!"   Douchey.

[Dos Equis]

Senate Republicans Block Obama 'Recess Appointment' of Garland

Image: Senate Republicans Block Obama 'Recess Appointment' of Garland (AP)
By Greg Richter   |   Sunday, 20 Mar 2016

Senate Republicans are denying President Barack Obama the chance to make a recess appointment to get his nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, onto the Supreme Court in his last year in office – by holding sessions during the recess period.

The Senate is scheduled to be on recess for the next two weeks, which would allow Obama to appoint Garland to the seat left vacant by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. without Senate action.

But Republicans control the Senate, and have scheduled twice weekly pro forma sessions — which will keep the body formally out of recess. These sessions, in which no business will be conducted, would be enough to block any unilateral move by Obama.

"It's very smart for the Senate to take every conceivable precaution to ensure the president doesn’t try to recess appoint his nominee," Brian Rogers of America Rising Squared told The Washington Times.

Republicans have vowed to take every measure possible to prevent Obama's nominee from being seated – saying they will allow voters to pick the next president in November, and the winner will then be able to name the next justice.

With any Democrat sure to name someone less conservative than Scalia, an appointment by anyone other than a Republican president would shift the 5-4 balance of the court from conservative to liberal.

The Times notes that Obama's previous attempts make recess appointments of judges are fueling the Senate strategy to prevent him from making one to the high court.

When Obama made several such appointments in 2012 he was challenged by the Senate, which had been in pro forma sessions. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously two years later that those appointments were unconstitutional.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/senate-block-recess-appointment/2016/03/20/id/720029/#ixzz43Yl1ndmZ

[Dos Equis]

Supreme Court Hands Down First 4-To-4 Decision Since Antonin Scalia’s Death
The ruling wasn’t major, but it offered a small taste of what an understaffed court is like.
03/22/2016
Cristian Farias
Legal Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post

ALEX WONG VIA GETTY IMAGES
The late justice wasn’t big on 4-to-4 ties.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued its first evenly split ruling since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia: a decision in a minor banking case involving spouses who serve as guarantors for each other’s debts.

The 4-to-4 ruling was “per curiam,” which means it was handed down in the name of the entire court, and nobody really knows what justice was on which side.

The opinion was just one line long: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.”

That means the ruling sets no nationwide precedent and leaves the lower-court ruling as the final decision in the case.

Leaving the law unsettled for now could potentially be good or bad news for major cases where future splits are a possibility — including pending disputes on abortion, affirmative action, public union fees, immigration and contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

In the public union fees case, for example, a 4-to-4 split would be an important victory for labor, since union advocates won that case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which skews liberal. (The unions didn’t do so well when the Supreme Court heard the case.)

But a split ruling in the abortion case, which is coming from the more conservative 5th Circuit, would represent a blow for women’s access to reproductive services, since the lower-court ruling upheld the Texas abortion clinic regulations being challenged.

If more splits do happen, the Supreme Court may consider these issues again in the future, but it probably won’t until the Senate decides to confirm Scalia’s replacement — whether that will be the recently nominated Merrick Garland or someone else is still anyone’s guess.

Which all underscores the need for a fully functioning Supreme Court. As Justice Anthony Kennedy once said at a congressional hearing, 4-4 ties “mean that everybody’s time is wasted.”

Or as Scalia himself put it once: “The Court proceeds with eight Justices, raising the possibility that, by reason of a tie vote, it will find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/supreme-court-first-4-4-split_us_56f1561de4b03a640a6ba559

[TuHolmes]

This is why there needs to be a 5-4 of some sort. This renders the highest court in the land basically worthless. 

[Dos Equis]

Supreme Court divided on ObamaCare contraception mandate
By  Bill Mears 
Published March 23, 2016
FoxNews.com

The Supreme Court appeared deadlocked Wednesday along ideological lines as justices weighed another legal challenge to ObamaCare -- this one, brought by a religious nonprofit that objects to paying for insurance covering birth control.

The case before the court is a hot-button trifecta — health care, abortion and religious freedom — and concerns ObamaCare's controversial contraception mandate.

The eight justices will decide whether religious-affiliated institutions like the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity of nuns, can be exempt from having to pay for -- or indirectly allow -- birth control and other reproductive health coverage in their health plans.

But the First Amendment challenge coming amid an election-year vacancy at the Supreme Court leaves this legal fight very much up in the air, and may not be fully resolved until the vacancy is filled. A 4-4 split could leave the provision in place for now.

The 90 minutes of debate grew tense at times, highlighting the split on the current court. The justices drew ideological differences over the moral and administrative implications of the law, President Obama's signature domestic policy accomplishment.

"It can't be all my way. There has to be an accommodation, and that's what the government tried to do," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She said creating an exception for the nuns would open the "floodgates" to make the law unworkable.

But Chief Justice John Roberts repeated the nuns' rhetoric when saying the plaintiff "has used the phrase 'hijacking,' and it seems to me that that's an accurate description of what the government wants to do." He said, "They want to use the mechanism that the Little Sisters and the other petitioners have set up to provide services because they want the coverage to be seamless."

Members of the Little Sisters of the Poor rallied along with their supporters in front of the court Wednesday, many carrying signs and buttons with "I'll Have Nun of It." Nearby were supporters of abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act.

While the LSP leaders are nuns, the charity employs hundreds of lay workers who otherwise may be eligible for the insurance service. Similar non-profits would include certain hospitals, parochial schools, and private faith-based universities.

Churches and other houses of worship themselves are already separately exempt outright under rules established by the Obama administration.

The high court two years ago said the Little Sisters and its third-party insurance administrator could remain temporarily exempt from the mandates, while lower courts continued to wrangle with the merits of the primary challenge to the federal health law provisions on contraception.

After ObamaCare was passed in 2010, the White House negotiated what it called a compromise aimed at allowing the medical coverage but also providing an administrative workaround for those opposing it. The central dispute revolves around a requirement these groups self-certify -- and sign a form authorizing an outside administrator to provide contraceptives without the employers' direct involvement.

In the early stages of the litigation, the Supreme Court issued a temporary order in January 2014, saying the administration could not enforce the mandates, at least temporarily.

The rules were designed by the administration to give women employed at nonprofit, religious-based organizations the ability to receive contraception through separate health policies with no co-pay.

Lawyers for the nuns and related plaintiffs, told the court Wednesday their clients faced a "moral dilemma" -- refuse to comply and face millions in crippling fines, or violate what all sides agree are the nuns' "sincerely held" religious beliefs.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/23/supreme-court-divided-on-obamacare-contraception-mandate.html?intcmp=hplnws

[Dos Equis]

Supreme Court upholds mandatory union fees in 4-4 tie
By Lydia Wheeler - 03/29/16

The Supreme Court upheld the legality of mandatory union fees for government workers in a 4-4 tie Tuesday.

The case had been expected to go against the unions, but in the absence of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a reliable conservative vote, the court instead deadlocked.

The split decision highlights what's at stake in the battle over President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland. Had another Democratic appointee been on the court, the ruling could have swung in favor of unions by a 5-4 margin.

The case — known as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association — centered on a California law that allows school districts to require public school teachers, as a condition of employment, to either join the union representing teachers in their district or pay the equivalent of dues to that union — typically 2 percent of a new teacher's salary.

The court’s even split lets stand a lower court ruling that requires teachers and other public employees to pay their “fair share” of union fees.

The justices issued only a short statement Tuesday saying the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court. No other explanation for their decision was provided.

A high court ruling against the fee requirement could have dealt a heavy blow to the financial power of labor unions.

During arguments in January, the court appeared deeply skeptical of the California law. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s likely swing voter, said then that there would be nothing to stop California from requiring every state employee to donate 1 percent of his or her salary to the governor’s election campaign.

"No one thinks, realistically, that's a voluntary decision to give money,” he said at the time. “There's only one purpose behind that kind of requirement, which is to inflate the governor's political war chest, just like the only purpose behind this is to, through inadvertence and neglect, inflate the union's war chest by people who really have not made a voluntary decision to do so.”

To rule in favor of the teachers, however, the court would have had to overturn the court’s 1977 decision to uphold union shops in public workplaces in a case known as Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Overturning past precedent is something the court is typically reluctant to do.

Union supporters were quick to praise the court for standing behind the nearly four-decades-old law.

“This marks a significant defeat for the wealthy special interests who want to hijack our economy, our democracy, and even the United States Supreme Court,” America Works Together said in a statement. “Millions of teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public service workers will continue to be able to band together in a union in order to speak up for one another, improve their communities, and hold the wealthy and powerful accountable.”

The California Teachers Association (CTA) released a statement calling the lawsuit against it a “political ploy” that aimed to make it harder for working families and the middle class to come together.

“California’s educators will continue to work together to provide quality, safe and healthy schools as we continue to ensure our students get the quality public education they need and deserve. Now it’s time for senators to do their job and appoint a successor justice to the highest court in our land,” CTA’s president Eric Heins said in a statement.

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/274543-supreme-court-upholds-mandatory-union-fees-in-4-4-tie