Just Say “NO!” Joe
Enlarging the Supreme Court and lower courts is a complex issue requiring that the Democratic nominee refuse to jump to judgment without a major strategic plan in place.
“There should be no hearing on any nomination that President Obama makes, and if any confirmation vote is attempted, I will filibuster it…We will not consider any Supreme Court nominee until the people have spoken and a new president is inaugurated,”
Senator Ted Cruz speaking for the GOP Senate Majority on the Floor of the Senate, March 7, 2016….8 months before the election
Biden and Harris should keep their thoughts on this sequestered. His advisers, Democratic Leadership, well-regarded jurists, historians, and experts on the U.S. Constitution will need to study the issue. Biden has addressed the matter previously saying that that the idea of balancing a seriously imbalanced court by adding seats is a dangerous precedent.
Of course, the crisis has been created by GOP strategies ran contrary to what had been practice and then was actually lifted up as dogma by the GOP in Obama’s last year. In that final year the GOP would not take up his nominee for a vacant court seat 283 days out from a presidential election because it was a presidential election year and too close to the time of voting…..9 months away. AND whereas the GOP had been slow walking, dismissing, and refusing to consider replacements for 128 judgeships offered by Obama for most of his presidency when they controlled the Senate.
Trump and McConnell have, to date, filled 104 of those seats in rushes to confirm, manipulated committee processes, and against the recommendations of competent legal authority in a third of those cases.
And Trump and McConnell have broken from their own “heartfelt” and “Impassioned” arguments that “the people” must be represented in these processes by not rushing to fill seats and to seek out balanced very well vetted nominees for those seats.
Hypocrisy from McConnell and Senate Republicans is not surprising but it has been notable in how blatant they are about it now. Unfortunately for them, voters can use their power to express their disapproval of this power grab and court stacking agenda that has been going on for years.
And the Republicans’ future howls about how “outrageous” the Democrats are for unstacking the courts when they expand the judiciary should be immediately dismissed then ignored.
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