Posted on 02/24/2016 3:38:25 PM PST by Kaslin
Gotta give credit where it’s due. Obama and his pal Harry know how to troll Republicans.
Brian Sandoval, the centrist Republican governor of Nevada, is being vetted by the White House for a possible nomination to the Supreme Court, according to two people familiar with the process.
Sandoval is increasingly viewed by some key Democrats as perhaps the only nominee President Obama could select who would be able to break a Republican blockade in the Senate…
Sandoval met Monday with Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid, a fellow Nevadan with whom he enjoys cordial relations.
A person familiar with the conversation said that while Sandoval told Reid he had not made a final decision on whether he would accept a Supreme Court nomination, he would allow the vetting process to move forward. Another person in Nevada familiar with the process confirmed that the process is underway.
Sandoval is pro-choice, expanded Medicaid, and oversaw Nevada’s construction of its own ObamaCare exchange (after the first attempt went sideways). He’s as “friendly” to Democrats as a modern Republican gets. Even so, I’m trying to imagine the reaction on the right if a Supreme Court vacancy opened up and a Republican president decided to bypass scores of conservative justices to nominate a center-left Democrat. And not just any center-left Democrat but someone who’s arguably underqualified: Sandoval spent a few years as attorney general of Nevada and then a handful more as a federal district judge, but most SCOTUS nominees have extensive appellate experience. Maybe Obama could sell this to the left on grounds that, with a Republican majority in the Senate vowing they’ll obstruct anyone he puts forward, a centrist Republican nominee is the best they can hope for. I doubt the right would go for that if the tables were turned, though; they’d want a Republican president to name a mainstream conservative and then fight tooth and nail to break the Senate’s will.
Maybe Obama could convince liberals that naming Sandoval would be worth it for the lulz. McConnell and Grassley would start to sweat as the White House proclaimed that the GOP is so intractable they’d actually block a member of their own party from the High Court out of personal pique towards Obama. Dean Heller, the Republican senator from Nevada, would likely cave immediately and call for McConnell to confirm Sandoval. The usual suspects, like Kirk, Collins, McCain, and Graham, would crumble too and join him. Soon you’d have open warfare within the GOP over whether to at least give Sandoval a Judiciary Committee hearing, and once the hearing was held there’d be pressure for a vote, and once that vote was held there’d be pressure for a floor vote. Like I say, Obama and Reid know how to troll. Kicking Sandoval onto the Supreme Court would also remove a major political stumbling block for Democrats in Nevada. Sandoval has been touted as an eventual Senate candidate; in the post-Trump GOP, with centrism newly respectable on the right again, it’s not nutty to think he’d have a half-serious eleventh-hour conversion on abortion down the road and run for president. Putting him on the Court, where he’ll be a reliable vote for Roe, would extract him from the political arena in his home state and beyond for the rest of his life. And Sandoval seems open to the opportunity:
"It would be a privilege," Sandoval said Saturday. The Supreme Court "is the essence of justice in this country."
Sandoval was unanimously confirmed by the Senate when he was nominated to a district court position by President George W. Bush in 2005, on Reid's recommendation. He quit four years later to mount a challenge to Nevada's incumbent governor, a race he won easily. But Sandoval has always said he wouldn't mind returning to the bench at some point.
"I loved my job as a judge when I did it," Sandoval said Saturday. “I, as I sit here, don't know what I'm going to do next. But I do know I'm the governor of Nevada."…
Asked which Supreme Court justices he admired, Sandoval pointed to Sandra Day O'Connor, who served in Arizona's state legislature before becoming a federal judge and, eventually, the first woman to serve on the high court.
How does O’Connor II sound, conservatives? Look on the bright side: This time, at least you’ll know going in that Sandoval’s prepared to sell you out on abortion.
Now, let me blow your mind with a hypothesis: With Trump as the near-certain GOP nominee, the Senate Republican majority is better off making a deal with Obama to confirm someone this year than waiting for the results of the election. Think about it. If Hillary wins, she’ll want to impress liberals who held their noses and turned out for her so she’ll nominate someone who’s reliably left-wing. The GOP could block that nominee, as we’ll have enough seats for a filibuster next year even in a worst-case scenario, but Schumer could always nuke the filibuster — and even if he doesn’t, there’s no running out the clock on Hillary. You can Bork her first nominee, but resistance will wear down for the second. She’ll wait us out. If Trump wins, meanwhile, the Senate GOP will be a in bind. They can work on him behind the scenes to appoint a strong conservative to the Court, but Trump’s likely to drift towards the center, not towards the right, in the general election. If he beats Hillary, it’ll be with a centrist coalition. He may try to reward those voters and set the tone for his presidency with a centrist Court nominee capable of winning votes from both parties. What do Senate Republicans do then, with the new leader of the party fresh off his stunning presidential victory? Do they dare try to Bork his choice right out of the gate? Not a chance, I think, which means you’re trusting Donald Trump to make a strong conservative pick and spare them that dilemma. How lucky do you feel?
All of that being so, the Senate GOP may never have as much leverage over the next justice as it does right now. Republicans have a majority for the moment and they’re under far less pressure to confirm an Obama nominee than they’d be under with Hillary or Trump in the White House. If you believe the conventional wisdom about Trump as a weak nominee with poor favorables who’ll ruin Republicans down-ballot, they’re also far less likely to maintain that Senate majority next year than they’d be with Rubio at the top of the ticket. They can dictate some terms if they want to make a deal with O right now (although not on abortion, alas). With Hillary or Trump, they might not be able to dictate any. Why wait for next year, then, rather than make a deal right now?
If they Democrats “allowed” them too.
lol
and there is a fat chance of them letting us do that with a potential of 2 lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court on the line. And with them a chance to shift the court dramatically left for a generation.
Approve Sandoval and you’ll see Ginsberg and Souter retire in short order to cement an Obama packed Court for several generations.
Your 2nd Amendment Rights will disappear as if there was a magician in the house.
Save the Republic No to anything Obama from now on.....PERIOD.
Smoke and mirrors. It’s a trap to open up the conversation.
Simple as this. Obama setting up GOP to turn down a Hispanic . Next month black female . That is all. Screw him.
there enough brain-dead true-believer libs who will never settle for a moderate.
Right? With Harry Reid as your best reference what could go wrong? FUHR.
Total sellout in embryo. He'll give Obama everything he wants. He might even be a closet case, like the law-school founder in California who educated and prepped AJ Kennedy, and then slipped him onto the short list after the Bork business when Pres. Reagan needed a substitute nominee.
The 'Rats borked Bork, and then we got Mr. Homosexual-Hugging Hero, who with settled law on the books, rewrote mores going back to the Book of Genesis and made us into offenders and bigots by a decree of our own court -- stroke of Kennedy's pen, law of the land.
If Obama nominates him, he is a guaranteed disaster.
I understand. I try not to shoot the messenger, but I do have a hair trigger... on my keyboard.
“:^)
Works for me.
I’d make a good list of his shenanigans, and when he starts pushing, start reading in front of a camera.
Nominating a popular Hispanic Republican office holder, obviously one well to the left of Scalia but well to the right of the 4 Nazis, would be a shrewd move by Osama. Very shrewd. Put it in the mind of GOP Senators “what if Hillary wins, we’d wish we’d done it”.
Sandoval ought to decline consideration for the good of the party but I have an inkling he’d really love the job.
All Republicans on the Senate Jud. committee including wacko Lindsay Graham sent have a letter to McConnell that they will NOT hold hearings on an Obama nominee.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/23/us/politics/document-Senate-SCOTUS-Letter.html?_r=0
Seems they expect the GOP to stick to it’s guns, hence this idea.
Still, I didn't expect Sandoval, if the rumors are true. More likely, I'd expect Obama would find some federal judge appointed by one of the President Bush's, who was originally "Conservative" but has since become a loyal Democrat bootlicker.. e.g., the judicial equivalent of Ray LaThug or Scott McCollum.
FDR did something similar, he named one of the Coolidge associate justice appointees to be elevated to Chief Justice, and picked someone who had "evolved" into a reliable big government statist.
Brian Sandoval is a shrewder choice. As an actual elected Republican (and former Judge) he’d give Obama more cover than some random RINO Nazi Judge we could call another Souter and actual people (voters, GOP Senators) actually know him from Adam.
He’s the ideal person for this gambit. If Obama nominates him he’d give up the attempt to get a Nazi in but would go for his best chance to move the court to the left and try and embarrass Republicans in they refuse him.
Trump’s sister would be a more wild gambit.
I hope the Governor is loyal to the party and declines.
Harlan Fiske Stone was actually Coolidge’s ONLY SCOTUS appointee. It was a terrible choice on par with Ford’s sole selection of John Paul Stevens. FDR could hide behind a bipartisan facade by elevating Stone to Chief Justice while secure in the knowledge he was a left-winger.
As for Sandoval, a social leftist CINO (Catholic in name only) is a slap in the face to Justice Scalia’s memory. A gargantuan “HELL, NO !” to him.
I wouldn’t frame the SCOTUS moonbats as Nazis. Stalinists are more appropriate. Anti-Constitutionalists definitely, for which ought to be grounds for impeachment.
I offer an even bolder suggestion: disbanding SCOTUS entirely and the federal courts. They are vested with too much power and there’s no check to their misrulings. States must possess the right to overrule them in the instances where their fiats are in violation of the Constitution (be it federal or state, or both).
Dear President Obama
In our role of advising, we are sending these 3 Scalia clones as nominees we will support.
Sincerely,
The Senate
Interesting.
You must be wondering if Hillary or Sanders might win the White House. I’d bet the whole farm that won’t happen.
Might as well.
If we lose this time around? Time to go bilingual and get an app: ‘newest ‘hate speech laws’.
It would be over. We are so fortunate that Obama did not invest his political capital into amnesty when he was first elected. Instead he blew it on Zero care. But Hillary or Sanders would increase the illegal vote and amnesty fast track right off the bat.
CONCLUSION ... all or nothing. There’s no point in compromise when you take down a rabid dog.
Grahmanesty was key in getting Obama’s judicial nominees through the Senate, voting for them to end a filibuster then against them in the final vote where Dems had the majority.
SC Republicans seem to love deceitful RINOS like him.
But even gay-boy Grahmanesty realizes that a Obama picked SCOTUS would make having a congress pointless.
Dingy Harry must have a long wrap sheet on this guy. When Harry and his leftist buddies need a vote, Harry will just dust off a few cases of graft and corruption and amazingly Mr. Sandoval will vote their way. Kind of like how Roberts is being blackmailed now.
The thing about appointing Governors rather than obscure judges is that Governors have paper trails. We KNOW for a fact that Sandoval is a pro-abortion Catholic In Name Only and pro-illegal alien. We didn't know anything about Souter's beliefs because he had only been on the NH Supreme Court for 6 months and hadn't written any major decisions.
When it came to Governors, I'm surprised Obama didn't go with one of the worthless Utah RINOs. If his pal Jon Huntsman had a law degree, he'd be ideal to give the RATs another reliable liberal vote on the court while the seat technically remains "R".
Hopefully, Sandoval will decline and it will be a repeat of when Obama tried to get Judd Gregg to take a cabinet post so he could have the RAT governor of NH fill his Senate seat with some Dede Scozzafava type DIABLO. The Republican Senators do need to "meet with" Sandoval -- but in private to tell him flat out that he needs to decline any nomination from Obama or they will hold it up in the Senate forever and it will damage his future political career.
If I had been Governor of Illinois when Obama's Senate seat was vacant and a replacement had to be named, I would have pulled the reverse move and named some solidly pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-gun rural downstate Democrat (a Glenn Poshard type or maybe a Lipinski type) to fill the vacancy, knowing that anyone I appointed with an "R" next to his name would be ruthlessly targeted in RAT controlled Illinois and immediately purged the next general election. Let them try to primary a popular downstate RAT in their own party.
>> In our role of advising, we are sending these 3 Scalia clones as nominees we will support. <<
Heh. There IS precedent for this. Remember when Sandra Day O'Connor retired and the RATs were going BALLISTIC at the mere suggestion that her replacement might be another Republican who is slightly to her right? They were screaming that O'Connor was a moderate and ANOTHER moderate MUST be named out of respect for the precious justice and not to upset the precious idealogical balance of the court.
We should throw their own words in their faces. If Obama accuses the GOP of being "obstructionsts", they can reply that they're happily willing to play ball and have an up-or-down vote on a nominee as long as Obama agrees to nominate one with the "advise" of the Senate, and send him a list of three Scalia clones as "bipartisan, consensus picks" (Janice Rogers Brown, etc.) Of course Obama will cry fowl, and then they can have a press conference and say "hey, we met with the President and were willing to compromise -- we AGREED to his demands to vote on a new justice before the next President is sworn in. He REFUSED to do it because he doesn't want the Senate involved in a bipartisan selection process."
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