The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a loss on immigration — and Gorsuch

AP ^ | 4/17/18 | AP

[AuH2ORepublican]

“Wild Bill Douglas, a real treasure himself (*snort*) actually could’ve served until 1980. It would’ve been interesting to see if there would’ve been a similar Scalia-replacement style battle during an election year to stop Carter from choosing a successor. I imagine had Carter been successful, he probably would’ve picked his former AG, Griffin Bell. Bell might’ve been marginally better than Stevens.”

Umm, no, it wouldn't have been a Scalia-replacement-style battle had Douglas stayed on the Court until his death in 1980. Obama didn't get to appoint Scalia’s replacement only because (i) the GOP had a majority in the Senate and in the Senate Judiciary Committee, (ii) the much-maligned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proved that he has balls of steel when he announced that he would hold the seat open until the winner of the presidential election was sworn in and made his nomination, and then made sure to keep the Senate in session until past the end of Obama’s term of office so as to prevent him from making a recess appointment, (iii) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley proved that he, too, has balls of steel and refused to schedule hearings for Obama’s nominee, despite being up for reelection that November and facing terrible press, (iv) all GOP members of the Judiciary Committee held firm, which was crucial because we only had a one-member advantage on the Committee, and (v) the Democrats never were able to get any traction with their argument that the GOP was staging a coup d’état by refusing to hold an up-or-down vote on Obama’s nominee, and the GOP did not suffer ANY losses for keeping the seat open. It was an extraordinary series of events, and one that I never thought was possible when I learned that Justice Scalia had passed away.

Had Douglas been on the Court when he died in 1980, do you really think that the U.S. Senate, which had 58 Democrats (none of which even suspected that the GOP would pick up 12 seats that November), was going to block President Carter from appointing a Justice? Carter would have appointed Secretary of Education (and former Ninth Circuit judge) Shirley Hufstedler as the first female Supreme Court Justice, and she almost certainly would be confirmed quite easily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_Supreme_Court_candidates