Republicans Are Handling The Supreme Court Vacancy All Wrong. Here's Why.

The Daily Wire ^ | 2/15/2016 | Ben Shapiro

[Sparticus]

In the aftermath of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Republicans have set upon a strategy for preventing a politically-driven justice from replacing Scalia and turning the Court’s conservative-leftist split into a permanent leftist majority. Their strategy: stating that they will not approve anyone nominated by President Obama. Virtually all the Republican presidential candidates have called on Obama not to nominate anyone to fill Scalia’s vacancy, explaining that he’s in the last year of his tenure and that it would be irregular to try to cram through a lifetime appointment before leaving office. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said, “It’s been standard practice over the last 80 years to not confirm Supreme Court nominees during a presidential election year.”

Democrats, of course, said that such a stall would be “unprecedented in recent history…And shameful abdication of our constitutional responsibility.” Those are the words of Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who cares for the Constitution the way that Cruella de Vil cared about puppies. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said, “I hope that no one will use this sad news to suggest that the President or the Senate should not perform its constitutional duty. The American people deserve to have a fully functioning Supreme Court.” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “When you go right off the bat and say, ‘I don’t care who he nominates, I am going to oppose him,’ that’s not going to fly.”

Members of the leftist media went even further, suggesting that the Republican opposition to Obama appointing a replacement for Scalia stemmed from racism. Zack Ford of ThinkProgress tweeted:

This is anarchy, insurrection, betrayal, or some combination of all three. https://t.co/J2xtLIJRRu— Zack Ford (@ZackFord) February 15, 2016

Clearly, we should take legal advice from such geniuses.

Brent Staples of The New York Times tweeted, “In a nation built on slavery, white men propose denying the first black president his Constitutional right to name Supreme Court nominee.”

This is stupidity – Democrats have routinely stalled Republican judicial nominees, with Chuck Schumer stating in 2007, “for the rest of this President’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation…we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee.” Here’s Reid circa 2008: “In a Presidential election year, it is always very tough for judges.”

Politics makes hypocrites of us all. Conservatives ( including me) spent years railing against Democrats filibustering judicial nominees; the last decade has made clear that Democrats are willing to do anything and everything to stack the courts. So this isn't about Obama's timing. This is about ideology.

I, along with other conservatives, don’t care about the procedural niceties any longer – all the tools are now on the table. The right wrongly assumed for decades that the left would not use the federal judiciary as a club against the Constitution. We were wrong.Which means that we should stop worrying about procedure and precedent. This argument isn’t about the timing of an Obama nominee. It’s about the substance of any nominee. We are one vote on the Supreme Court away from gutting the Constitution wholesale. Yes, Obama has the capacity under the Constitution to name a nominee. And yes, the Senate has the right to deny hearings, vote down, or filibuster any of those nominees. They should do all of that to any judge at any level who does not mirror Justice Scalia’s jurisprudential philosophy. And that obligation should extend to all time, not just to Obama’s nominees or his final year. If Hillary Clinton is elected, God forbid, Republicans should continue to stop her nominees at all levels. Those nominees will not and do not reflect the proper role of the judiciary. End of story.

To do any less is a disservice to the Constitution. The founders never believed that judicial review made the Supreme Court the moral arbiter of the land; Alexander Hamilton explicitly rejected that view in Federalist No. 78, when he wrote, if “they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, [that] would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from” the legislature. Critics of the Constitution objected, correctly, that the Supreme Court could become a tool of tyranny; anti-federalist Robert Yates wrote:

There is no power above them, to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself.

That is, unless the judges we approve understand what Justice Scalia understood, as he wrote in his dissent in the same-sex marriage case last year:

This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

The Constitution means what it means. Those who are appointed to interpret it are not qadis sitting under trees, handing down the Holy Writ. Leftists only appoint those who believe they get to impose their morality through the judiciary. Conservatives must oppose all such nominees, no matter the time, the place, or the source.

[Sparticus]

Since the Senate's constitutional role is to "Advise and Consent," the Senate Judiciary Committee should send Obama a letter stating to the effect, "In the Senate's Constitutional role of Advisement on Judicial Appointees we hereby submit the and advise that the following, exclusive list of potential Supreme Court nominees as listed below comprise the only appointees which will be considered. All other appointees will not receive consideration and be summarily ignored."

From that point on they should simply ignore Obama on the subject entirely.

[Ray76]

The Senate is not in recess. They are adjourned.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3397346/posts?page=12#12

[Scirparius]

The GOP establishment doesn't care about appointing a conservative or an originalist to the Supreme Court. If you think they do, you are fooling yourself.

[SgtHooper]

FU Shapiro.

[redfreedom]

You are correct, to appoint a conservative would be contrary to what they are. The only thing conservative about them is the public’s perception of what they used to be and think they still are.

Aside from perception, they are selfish Uniparty pigs at the DC money trough lapping up all they can before it’s all over for all of us. They loath old style party loyalists, conservatives, Christians, and those that believe in the highest law of the land, being the Constitution.

All they are going to do is put up a farcical fight, make some deal to tell the public they won, and let obama have his way. It’s been their MO for 7 years, why should they stop now?

[gogeo]

This article is spot on.

[DoughtyOne]

[sickoflibs]

Just be happy that they preemptively announced this.

Because once Obama does pick someone it will be racist sexism, etc, to oppose them.

Just like the last two.

[SW6906]

Huh? Did you read the article? Post to the wrong thread?

[Theodore R.]

Excellent advice; somehow I can’t see Grassley and McC following it.

[Clintonfatigued]

So far, Republicans are handling this right. Most aren’t making commitments one way or the other. Right now the proper thing to do is honor Antonin Scalia’s memory and leave the public speculating to others.

Delaying it indefinitely is tricky. I personally like the idea. But many Americans don’t have my point of view and I have to take that into account. There is a saying, “if you don’t deal with reality, than reality will deal with you.”

[HombreSecreto]

That is an approach. Another is just to have Obama nominate someone, the Senate begins vetting, which of course will take a lot of time since it is an election year.

Sometime around June, the Senate filibusters or rejects the nominee in committee.

Obama nominates another. The same process happens, but the filibuster or rejection will be sometime in October.

Of course no way can a lame duck Senate go through a nomination process (it wouldn’t be fair, you know), so the third nominee is filibustered until the new President is sworn in, who (assuming Republican) will pull the nomination.

I see your point, but any movement like you propose is a de facto starting of a negotiation and we really shouldn’t do that at all. Delay, delay, delay, then say no and make Obama start the process again while the sand in his presidential hourglass runs out, imo.

Also, McConnell needs to make sure the Senate is always in an “in session” status to prevent any recess appointment of ANY judges, not just SCOTUS.

[Yogafist]

I think they will delay a vote until the end of June when the Supreme court releases their decisions, then I expect them to start softening to an Obama appointee with the excuse that a Republican President will likely appoint a replacement for Ginsburg returning the balance to the court.

[COBOL2Java]

Since the Senate's constitutional role is to "Advise and Consent," the Senate Judiciary Committee should send Obama a letter stating to the effect, "In the Senate's Constitutional role of Advisement on Judicial Appointees we hereby submit the and advise that the following, exclusive list of potential Supreme Court nominees as listed below comprise the only appointees which will be considered. All other appointees will not receive consideration and be summarily ignored."

From that point on they should simply ignore Obama on the subject entirely.

---

B..but, if they do that, they won't be invited on the Sunday morning talk shows anymore! People inside the beltway will call them racist, sexist, homophobes! The Washington Post and NY Times will write nasty things about them!

[sickoflibs]

RE:”Delaying it indefinitely is tricky. I personally like the idea. But many Americans don't have my point of view and I have to take that into account. There is a saying, “if you don't deal with reality, than reality will deal with you.”

Aren't all the other options worse?

I thought I heard Grahamnesty say in an interview that even he is for doing that.

If you got him you probably have them all.

How can anyone in the GOP not see how bad things would be with five Melissa Harris Perry's on the court and one of them Chief Justice??

[Clintonfatigued]

I’ve never heard of Melissa Harris Perry.

[sickoflibs]

RE:”I';ve never heard of Melissa Harris Perry.”

You don't know what you are missing...Saturdays and Sundays 10am-noon MSNBC

Enjoy
5 dumbest Melissa Harris-Perry quotes of 2013 [VIDEO]
Sample :

2.) She compared the term "Obamacare" to the "n-word": "President Obama has been labeled with this word by his opponents, and at first he rose above it, hoping that if he could just make a cause for what he'd achieved, his opponents would fail in making their label stick. But no matter how many successes that he had as president, he realized there were still many people for whom he'd never be anything more than that one disparaging word -- a belief he knew was held not just by his political opponents, but also by a significant portion of the American electorate.

[Clintonfatigued]

I hope Obama appoints her. She’d drag her whole party down to defeat.

[sickoflibs]

I thinks she’s a lawyer too. And a professor

It would be racism to oppose her nomination, and sexism, maybe LGBT-phobia for all we know.

[Lazamataz]

Why? He’s right.

For a change.