Posted on 06/29/2018 7:15:58 AM PDT by GonzoII
The short answer: No
WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - With Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's momentous announcement Wednesday that he'd be retiring, the focus now turns to the fight over the new Court vacancy.
Democrats won't have the leverage they've had in the past, as Republicans exercised the "nuclear option" in last year's battle to seat Justice Neil Gorsuch. After heated confirmation hearings, Democrats filibustered the vote, and Republicans made good on their promise to change Senate rules, voting to ensure cloture (the vote to end the filibuster) no longer requires a supermajority.
"This will be the first and last partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed at the time.
The change in Supreme Court rules will guarantee that Democrats can't block Trump's nominee to replace Kennedy via filibuster. But the nominee is not a shoo-in; with a handful of unreliable Republicans in the Senate, Trump's candidate — whoever it might be — is not guaranteed enough votes for confirmation.
Senators to Watch
Senator John McCain (AZ) has been absent all year owing to health reasons, and there is a good possibility he may sit out the confirmation vote, making the balance effectively 50 Republicans to 49 Democrats.
And defection by pro-abortion Republican Senators Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) is a real possibility, especially if Trump comes through on his promise to nominate a solidly pro-life judge.
Senator Jeff Flake (AZ) has been no fan of Trump and has even threatened to block any judicial nominees, while Sen. Dean Heller (NV) is facing a difficult midterm race in a state that overwhelmingly went for Hillary Clinton, and will feel pressure to vote against Trump's pick.
But Democrat defectors could save Trump's nominee, particularly those running in close races in red states...
(Excerpt) Read more at churchmilitant.com ...
Theoretically, the Dems can do it, if they can get a few Republicans to turn traitor ( there are 3 weak links with Jeff Flake being the most likely to be Judas. This man has nothing to lose and has shown his spiteful character recently ).
Can’t the Dems hold it up in the Senate Judicial Committee?
All right then...
Let’s get ‘er done!
Not only no but hell no.
How? The Rep hold the majority on the committees and can move it out of committee to the floor at their discretion.
Only with Republican help.
The Democrats can’t block it. Only Republicans can do that.
Nope!
Mitch can call for a vote as he pleases.
Misleading headline alert. More realistic:
WILL GOP DEFECTORS TEAM WITH DEMOCRATS TO THWART TRUMP SCOTUS NOMINEE?
IV. BRINGING A MATTER TO A VOTE The Chairman shall entertain a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bring the matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with eleven votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.
It's possible to move a nominee to the full Senate without committee vote. Just saying, holding the majority on the committee is not enough or is not the mechanism for getting the matter before the full Senate.
Dems on MSNBC keep saying they only need to flip one GOP Senator and all the DEms, the second part will be a challenge.
The Democrats can’t stop the nominee.
Bush League Republicans can.
Corker, Flake, Hatch, McCain, Collins, Murkowsky, etc.
Simply put, NO...
Unless Flake decides he needs a McCain/Obamacare moment to go out on...
its 51-49... if McCain is too ill to vote its 50-49... Pence is still there as a tie breaker vote as well...
We'll get some Dems.
At the time of the Gorsuch nomination Schumer was of the opinion that the FBI and Deep State would soon remove Trump so he had no incentive to not filibuster the Gorsuch nomination.
So the answer is no.
But a couple of Republicans can.
Others have mentioned this.
Baloney...
Well, there is one other problem here for the Democrats. This new Senator Jones from Alabama has to run again in 2020, if he votes against the name...it’ll be pulled out and talked a good bit in Alabama politics. Some say that he’ll have to vote for the name, in order to win in 2020.
I suspect there’s four Democratic Senators in the race for this November, and that their vote against the person will hurt their election chances slightly.
The whole election for November, in my mind....has changed because of this episode.
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