Posted on 01/04/2017 6:53:30 AM PST by detective
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer is preparing to block President-elect Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee if he or she is not in the “mainstream.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support,” the New York Democrat told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday night.
Asked if he would do his best to hold the seat open, Schumer responded, “Absolutely.”
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
One of them is d-RAT Manchin ... WV elected Trump by the second widest margin of the 50 States (we lost by less than a percentage point to Wyoming). Munchkin better watch what he's doing ... we're certainly watching.
The better way to fight this is through Trump applying pressure to the twenty democrats who come up for reelection in 2018, more than half in states that Trump won. That's a lot of pressure on them, they won't want to appear as obstructionist, they want to save their jobs.
“It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support,”
Brought to you by the same people who blast Trump for not mending fences. They don’t see an ounce of irony or hypocrisy here at all.
No worries, Trump WILL get his nominee to the Supreme Court.
It might be nuclear, but a recess appointment would be easier to arrange. Let the Dems throw their tantrum, be seen as obstructionist and then go around tnem
Not for SCOTUS. My question is, at some point, can we also take the nuclear option and make it a simple majority for the SCOTUS?
Sounds like they, the Senate needs to use Dirty Harry’s option!!!
I’m disappointed that so many posters on this thread do not know the history of the nuclear option and where it is applicable and where it is not.
But if the thread is read closely, they will learn a valuable fact.
Time for Mitch to use the nuclear option for SC nominees if need be. If Trump gets 3-4 picks in 8 yrs. he sets the court safely in relatively conservative hands for two generations. If we don’t get another John Roberts in the bunch.
How many senseable Dems are in the senate??? Manchan may come over, who else is up for reelection in 18 that is in a Trump state????
There is almost no precedent for filibustering SCOTUS nominees. No reason to allow it as a standard course of action now. The ‘nuclear’ option is perfectly valid and should be instituted now.
Trump truly does have the chance to undo most of the last 50 years or more of bad court rulings... Not only that, but he can redfine the federal court system below the supreme court as well.
The Dems will do anything in their power to stop it... but Trump isn’t going to back down or fall for their astroturfing or any of the other crap they do trying to scare republicans whenever they are doing the right thing, away from it.
But I don’t for one minute think the Dems won’t try every stupid dirty and even illegal trick they can think of to stop it, because they know this is generational change against htem they are facing.
Beware the 5 minute recess appointment occurring between the end of BO’s reign and DT’s Inauguration. Don’t know how BO would do it standing onstage beside DT. But BO has tried to do stranger things and gotten away with it. The Senate technically are in recess for 5 minutes then.
He can’t do it if they let me duck-tape his mouth shut and cable-tie his wrists.
He’d probably enjoy that ...
Not with the nuclear option!
Trump already has the extra votes he needs.
With almost a score of Red State Dem Senators up for re-election in ‘18, plus others in Blues which DT won, Chuck U Schumer is very vulnerable to DT’s particular style of persuasion. This coming SCOTUS confirmation is going to be very entertaining and once again flabbergasting to the drive-by media and Alt-Leninists.
Another question is, are these rule changes permanent? Probably not. So, it seems the next nuclear option would be to pass a rule change removing the 60 vote hurdle for SCOTUS nominees if the Dims try to block Trump nominees.
Then, later rule changes could presumably reinstate the requirement for 60 votes to end debate for cabinet nominees and any level of federal judges.
I think the rules could be changed back and forth whenever the Senate voted to do so. But that leaves me wondering why the Dims did not change the rule back on cabinet nominees and judges other than SCOTUS. Maybe they were too confident and did not imagine they would lose the Senate, so left the rules in place for 2014.
Is anyone certain how those rule changes work? Can they be changed back and forth as Senate majorities might decide?
I think there has also been a tradition that the 60 vote rule is not used to block SCOTUS nominees. But only a tradition.
Nuclear option. Like they always say, what’s good for the goose is always good for the gander… Oh Sheila! ( that was an 80s song reference :-)
Dems did it for federal court nominees, what’s the stop Republicans from doing it for Scotus nominee’s? What goes around comes around.
To paraphrase an ancient Chinese proverb: be careful who you piss on on the way up because they are the same people you will see on the way back down.
Look what Reid is saying here (dated October 25, 2016):
Reid: If Hillary wins and Dems retake the Senate, expect Dems to use the Nuclear Option for SCOTUS
http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/10/harry-reid-nuclear-option-proliferator/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3510836/posts
Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he is confident that he has laid the groundwork for Democrats to nuke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if they win back the Senate in November.
Envisioning Hillary Clinton in the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate, Reid warned that if a Senate Republican minority block her Supreme Court nominee, he is confident the party won’t hesitate to change the filibuster rules again.
Such a move would be an extension of what Reid did in 2013 when he was still majority leader, eliminating filibusters (with a simple majority vote) on the President’s nominees. There was only one exception: the Supreme Court. As it stands now, Democrats still need 60 votes to move forward with a Supreme Court nominee.
Reid said, however, that could change.
“I really do believe that I have set the Senate so when I leave, we’re going to be able to get judges done with a majority. It takes only a simple majority anymore. And, it’s clear to me that if the Republicans try to filibuster another circuit court judge, but especially a Supreme Court justice, I’ve told ’em how and I’ve done it, not just talking about it. I did it in changing the rules of the Senate. It’ll have to be done again,” Reid told TPM in a wide-ranging interview about his time in the Senate and his legacy.
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Trump, at this time (end of October), was not expected to win - at the very end of the post, the author made this comment - read and ENJOY:
Of course, for Republicans to use the Nuclear Option as to the Supreme Court would take three things: (1) Trump winning the presidency, (2) Republicans holding the Senate, and (3) Republican Senators being willing to play smash mouth as aggressively as Harry Reid and Democrats do.
No. 1 seems increasingly unlikely; No. 2 is a toss-up; No. 3 probably will not happen, as a Republican Senate would probably wimp out.
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