The Democrats badly miscalculated, as far as strategy with filibusters on Supreme Court nominees.
When Gorsuch was nominated, the Democrats launched a filibuster, which led to the nuclear option, doing away with the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.
If they had held off the filibuster then, then the filibuster rule would still be alive, and they might have had some leverage here.
Gorsuch replacing Scalia was simply one conservative replacing another, so the balance of the court didn’t shift.
The Democrats would have been wise to hold off then, let Gorsuch be confirmed easily, and save the filibuster fight for a time like now, when the balance of the court could well shift away from them.
I’m no political operative, but in retrospect, it looks like they badly messed up.
And now they are saying that nobody Trump nominates can get their approval, not even be considered. So I assume all Dems. are automatic no votes.
Is this part of the Democrats strategy for the mid term elections, try to take hard lines everywhere, in the hopes of attracting more moderate or undecided voters to vote Democrat???
After the Dems assassinated Scalia, the plan was for Hillary to win and replace with Bill Maher.
but...
Don't. There are Dems in Red States. The confirm vote will sink them if they thumbs down. Mitch is running this now having just had his wife threatened. I'm feeling pretty damn good right now old friend.
Is this part of the Democrats strategy for the mid term elections, try to take hard lines everywhere, in the hopes of attracting more moderate or undecided voters to vote Democrat???
No, their strategy is to attract more radical hard left
activists.
I think the biggest Miscalculation was Ginsburg and Breyer not retiring during Obama’s term.
They thought Hillary was such a sure thing that it wasn’t a risk at all.
Big mistake. If one of these two kick the bucket, the Libs will not have any Court power for 30 years.
“hard lines everywhere”
It worked to save the Obamination of the PPACA.
However, Schumer and his team botched on the amnesty bill this week. It was a total gift to them and they refused the RINO gift of the year.
Some thoughts about McConnell. As much as I would like to see him go, the judgeships are the only chance of survival that McConnell has and I think he knows it. In the Supreme Court battle, there is no one better that we have on our side to spearhead this.
My biggest concern is our stupid comments about 2020 with regard to a Supreme Court opening. We should not preclude this possibility and not respond to the bait from the Rats about no nominees in an election year. Unfortunately, McConnell has said something like “Last time I looked this wasn't a presidential year.” Even worse Grassley has stated that he would not consider a candidate in 2020. For now we should STFU about 2020 and not lock us in with a BS rule. If an opening became available in 2020 (and we had a majority of senators which is likely), McConnell might actually recant as his election would be on the line. He is a survivor and he would realize that that accepting the Biden rule would doom him.
I agree 100% with what you just wrote. In fact, I said back when the RATs were filibustering Gorsuch that it was a terrible miscalculation on their oart.
Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski would be a lot less likely to pull the trigger on the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster for SCOTUS nominations if it was to permit the confirmation of a conservative to replace Kennedy and (hopefully) become the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Democrats basically made it easy for the two pro-abortion Republican Senators to vote for the nuclear option when the filibuster was taking place not to protect Roe v. Wade, but to stop the confirnation of a qualified, likeable conservative to replace someone just as conservative and thus something that would not affect the balance of power. The nuclear-option vote is the difficult one, because once the filibuster is gone there is no way that a qualified conservative will lose the up-or-down vote given that too many Democrats in conservative states will end up voting for such nominee (whereas such Democrats could vote against the nuclear option much more freely because it was about “process” and “Senate tradition” and not about a qualified conservative judge).
The Democrats had one chance to filibuster, and they used it up too early and on the wrong nomination. The only explanation, apart from a combination of hubris and fear of primary challenges from the left, is that Democrats thought that the next confirmation battle (be it for Kennedy’s or Ginsburg’s seat) would come after the 2018 midterms and that Republicans would be likely to have more than the 52 Senators that they had in 2017. Instead, the confirmation fight will take place before the midterms, and the GOP only has 51 Senators (one of whom is terminally ill, has not been in DC for over a month and may not be available to vote), which would have made it a lot more feasible for the Democrats to (i) get their 49 members plus a couple of Republicans to vote against the nuclear option and then (ii) get 41 Democrat Senators to filibuster the nomination (Schumer could give permission to up to 8 Democrats to vote for cloture and still have an effective filibuster). But, because of what the Dems did last year, they can’t even try to filibuster President Trump’s nominee.
That was a terrible unforced error by Senate Democrats. I hope that their memories of the pats on the back that they got from Leftist activists during the Gorsuch confirmation hearings will serve as consolation for the pain that SCOTUS will send their way for years to come.
You summed it up expertly. Even some of the saner libs said basically the same thing then and were ignored.
Of course, Harry Reid started all of this off by going nuclear and now its come back to bite them.
“When Gorsuch was nominated, the Democrats launched a filibuster, which led to the nuclear option, doing away with the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.
If they had held off the filibuster then, then the filibuster rule would still be alive, and they might have had some leverage here.”
But....but...all things Trump must be #resist and #woke. So they were forced by their Frankensteins Monster into an unforced error.