Personally I think Obama should appointment an individual who is acceptable to the GOP. Then maybe we would have a truly impartial Justice... Thoughts?
MinnPost Scalia
NPR 7 Things to Know
Slate Nomination
MinnPost Scalia
NPR 7 Things to Know
Slate Nomination
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a moderate justice nominated by Obama will not be acceptable to the GOP.
The only nominee that would be acceptable to the GOP is a hard core conservative and clearly Obama is not going to do that.
Now I am talking a real MM, not an LM that you see as moderate. :-)
I think whoever Obama nominates will be described by the msm as moderate and will have no chance with the GOP. It wouldn't surprise me if Obama gave a list to the senate with several moderates to choose from.
What would you define as the "GOP" to which the president is to find a nominee who is successful? Donald Trump? Should he be required to win a "An Apprentice" like reality show?
Actually, the Republicans will refuse to accept even "yes" for an answer. There is in fact a number of appointees that would be acceptable to the Republicans if they were submitted by a Republican president, whom the senate would reject out of hand coming from President Obama. It really isn't a matter of finding a nominee acceptable to the GOP. Such a person simply does not exist.
--Hiram
I can guarantee that Republicans will like whoever Obama nominates much better than who a President Clinton or President Sanders nominates if the GOP chooses to obstruct and then loses the Presidential election in November.
Supreme Court justices tend to drift to the center, something both Democrats and Republicans are aware of. Democrats don't mind this but Republicans do which is why Republicans seem much unhappier with their justices than we are with ours. No Democratic Supreme Court justice in memory is despised by Democrats as much as Chief Justice Roberts is currently despised by Republicans. One of the things that means is that Democrats have a much larger pool of potential justices to choose from. President Obama could quite easily choose a highly respected Republican judge, Richard Posner is one such judge whose name has been mentioned, and effectively put Republicans in the position of rejecting one of their own.
Effective politicians try to maintain flexibility. Republicans, by pinning themselves down in the difficult if not completely untenable position of refusing to consider any Obama nominee, have conceded just about all the flexibility there is to the president. Huddled as Republicans are, the president is free to probe their vulnerabilities from any direction he chooses, helping to ensure that Republicans pay the maximum political price for their intransigence.
--Hiram
The chances that Obama would appoint any judge to the right of Karl Marx are about the same as your average Southern Baptist being appointed Pope of the Catholic Church. Here we have one more example of how the word "moderate" has been corrupted and claimed by the Left. There are only two ways to decide in every Supreme Court case, as evidenced by the number of 5-4 decisions that come down. In every case, four of the justices are right and four of them are wrong. Do we really want to make the court more reliably leftist with just one appointment, or would we prefer to maintain the "balance"?
I will agree that some Republicans have made statements painting themselves into a corner, by saying they will not accept any nominee from Obama. What they should say is that they will perform their constitutional duty of advice and consent for whomever Obama nominates (taking their own sweet time about it, of course). That puts them on the right side of the politics, and with the same result – that Obama's far-left appointee is never confirmed.
This is an interesting piece.
Democrats have controlled the White House for 16 of the last 24 years. Shifts in ideology are bound to happen when that occurs, just as it did when Republicans were more successful at winning the Presidency. Let us not forget that Antonin Scalia replaced Warren Burger on the Court back in 1986.
And yet we are under the illusion that judges are "nonpartisan" and "objective." They should not HAVE an "ideology" but should be deciding cases on merit, and in the SCOTUS on the basis of constitutionality alone. That is far from the case with the 4 liberal justices, and should not be allowed, if at all possible, to be further "stretched."
"The chances that Obama would appoint any judge to the right of Karl Marx are about the same as your average Southern Baptist being appointed Pope of the Catholic Church."
Actually, it's entirely possible that the president could appoint a middle of the road or even conservative jurist. Such an appointment could really put the Republicans on the spot.
I don't question the senate's authority under the constitution to define their obligation to advise and consent pretty much any way they like. But if they exercise that authority irresponsibly or in a way that undermines the dignity of the president or of the senate itself, they will pay a political price. Or in this era of Trump, maybe not.
--Hiram
"They should not HAVE an "ideology" but should be deciding cases on merit, and in the SCOTUS on the basis of constitutionality alone."
Determining "constitutionality" is inherently an ideological pursuit. "Originalists" tend to ignore the fact that the Founding Fathers were frequently of different minds on critical issues and the wording of the Constitution was in many places left vague to allow society to sort it out down the road. Not to mention the sheer folly of trying to mind-meld with someone who lived 200+ years ago and figure out how they would respond to a world that would be completely unrecognizable to them.
They should not HAVE an "ideology" but should be deciding cases on merit, and in the SCOTUS on the basis of constitutionality alone.
Yes, but in practice that doesn't mean very much. There are certain basic logic problems for one: If you are "supreme" what is the authority you can rely on? Who or what is more supreme?
--Hiram
From a pure political point of view, I assume Obama has one of two choices, since NOT making a crassly political appointment is beyond his imagination. He can appoint someone from his ideological swamp and try to batter the GOP from his self-exalted lame-duck perch, or he can appoint someone outwardly reasonable to more easily sway public opinion in his favor and "harm" Republicans-- his favorite tactic. But I don't think the first will work, at all. He is the lame duck, Republicans control the Senate, and they still have the filibuster, not to mention control of the Judiciary Committee where the whole thing must start, and you KNOW how busy they are. :-^
Going the other way is almost the same because, as I said, I cannot imagine Obama appointing anyone not left of center, and I think that would out someplace along the line. You can paint stripes on a donkey but it's not a zebra. And the one thing GOP voters are most angry about is that the "establishment" (here's looking at you, Mitch McConnell) won't stand up to Obama and just gives him every thing he wants. Nothing will bring out GOP voters like having a good "must-win" fight brewing on election day. It might bring out Democrats, but I sense a substantial enthusiasm gap there.
The president has many choices. It's the Republicans who have stuck themselves in a corner, and who are now trying to wriggle their way out of it.
The Republican justices on the Supreme Court have taken some very extreme positions. For a large segment of the legal community, the position of those justices that they should, for example, play a significant role in health care policy is simply absurd. Nowhere in the constitution or in it's contemporary supporting documents, is there any indication at all that the founders, who lived in an age of leeches, and whose brain surgeons doubled as barbers were addressing health care issues in the 21st century. That being the case, it wouldn't be very difficult at all for the president to find impeccably conservative jurists who, once on the court, would do most of what he wants.
--Hiram
Please provide examples, inquiring minds want to know.
"Republican justices on the Supreme Court have taken some very extreme positions"
SCOTUS and Obamacare
The health insurance cases, where some justices at least, seemed eager to take on a legislative role. Chief Justice Roberts in particular seems weirdly under the impression that someone elected him to something.
--Hiram
Example?
Elect: choose (someone) to hold public office or some other position by voting.
Appoint: assign a job or role to (someone).
Just curious... If elected officials vote to appoint someone... What is that?
The obvious pick for Obama is Justice Srinivasan. He was approved 97-0 in the Senate three years ago (including Yea votes from Cruz and Rubio), he clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor, and defended ExxonMobil and Enron exec Jeff Skilling in private practice. He worked in the Solicitor General's office under both G.W. Bush and Obama. Prominent Republican legal minds like Paul Clement and Ken Starr have endorsed him. The only question is if Srinivasan himself is willing to let himself become a punching bag in the partisan political fight now, because he's a feasible Court selection for years to come.
I like him so far since apparently he makes the Liberal press nervous... That is always a good start.
I have not heard of this judge, and as much as I dislike labels I would think whether he could fairly be called a liberal or a conservative would matter a very great deal at this juncture. It is my firm belief that Obama is incapable of nominating someone even slightly right of center, and probably would choke on someone slightly left of center. He wants to appoint a radical leftist, and should. That would make Senator Grassley's job easy.
A name I see tossed around a lot is Richard Posner, who is probably the most distinguished conservative judge in America. It would be virtually impossible for the GOP to maintain any sort of credibility in rejecting him, and I would be just fine with having him on the bench. I don't believe there is any short of conservative judges who Obama could reasonably nominate if that's the direction the president chooses to go in. Republicans want not just conservatives, but specially selected conservatives who they can count on to legislate their views from the bench. Those guys aren't all that common, which is why they have so frequently been disappointed in the justices Republican presidents support.
--Hiram
I think Republicans are "disappointed" because GOP Presidents generally nominate someone conservative but with a good chance of passing the ideological tests that Democrats will throw up. Appointments like Scalia are rare, and Bork is the more common fate of conservative appointments when Democrats control the Senate. I think the chances that Obama will appoint anyone nearly as "moderate" in the face of a GOP Senate as a GOP President would put up faced with a Democrat Senate are very remote. That will be the /claim/, but we all know Obama is a liar. NO, strike that. It's too harsh. Let's just say Obama's words are often indifferent to their commonly-accepted meaning.
I think Republicans are "disappointed" because GOP Presidents generally nominate someone conservative but with a good chance of passing the ideological tests that Democrats will throw up. Appointments like Scalia are rare, and Bork is the more common fate of conservative appointments when Democrats control the Senate.
What Republicans learned in my view is that while they hated a liberal judicial approach, they were enamored of a conservative approach either. So they spent years developing a farm system of oddball true believers who both had the extreme right wing views but also a record of concealing them.
Bork is always the limit. Bork believed the state could make birth control illegal. That's a litmus test no nominee is now allowed to fail.
--Hiram
"Appointments like Scalia are rare?"
I'm not so sure about that. Since then, Republicans have nominated Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. That's 50% in the Scalia hard-conservative camp. And both Thomas and Alito moved the ideological balance of the court to the right -- Thomas significantly, as he replaced Thurgood Marshall.
"Bork is the more common fate of conservative appointments when Democrats control the Senate."
Isn't Bork the only Supreme Court nominee since the Nixon Administration to have been denied confirmation by the Senate? I'm not sure how he reflects "more common".
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