As usual I’m with Bernie on this. Why would Democrats want to immediately give Trump a new Justice to nominate. Democrats are too focused on Kumbaya and bipartisanship to actually nominate a Justice.
And even if she stepped down, the current Senate, which they don’t even have a majority with the Democrat-In-Name-Only turned independents Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are likely to block any decent Democrat proposals until the Senate tilts full Republican, where it definitely won’t happen.
They have a better chance of keeping the status quo by crossing their fingers she stays in position for at least the next US election. IMO it’s either you roll the dice, or you admit defeat right away.
Isn’t the argument that a younger replacement would be fast tracked now, while the Dems had the whitehouse and the senate?
The left obviously doesn’t want to leave a vacant seat for Trump. The point is to lock the seat down even harder.
aren’t they just going to have the same issue as last time, where the appointment will be stalled till he takes office then suddenly all the resistance disappears and they can send it through immediately?
Different circumstances, same result.
Previously McConnell prevented the Senate from voting on Obama’s nomination for months before the election.
In this case, Biden could nominate someone, and Schumer would undoubtedly call a vote ASAP, but then you’d risk the vote failing because of Manchin and Sinema. They’ve already publicly betrayed the Democratic party and they’re both on their way out; there’s nothing for them to gain by playing ball with a SCOTUS nominee.
The result would be exactly as before: Trump would come into office and get a SCOTUS pick right away, the only thing that might be different is whether McConnell or Scott gets to submit the pick. Hell, he might get to do it anyway if Alito and/or Thomas retire, so why give up another seat?
They’d need to do what they do before bringing a bill to the floor. Make sure that they have the votes ahead of time.
If you get one of those two people bought in on a particular justice candidate, then you could tell the current sitting Justice “it’s safe,” and you could fast-track the new person.
That said, there is still risk of someone having a change of heart at the last minute.
Lol, you think the republicans would seat a new justice after Biden lost the election? They only ever do that for their own party
That worked out so well getting us Justice Gorsuch. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Have things gotten significantly better since then? Or worse?
The Dems did not control both the WH and the Senate when RGB died. They do now - for another 7 weeks.
If she’s like Ginsburg, she’s got at least 4 more Presidential elections in her.
But in the end, it won’t matter. Trump will convince Thomas and Alito to step down like he did Kennedy and we’ll have a 5 member Trump court for the remainder of our lives.
Yep. If people thought the first 4 years were bad. The bar has been lowered so much its in orbit beyond the moon.
If we get elections in the future, it’s possible we’ll get Democrats in two of the branches, and if they get their shit together they can pack the courts. It’s not entirely hopeless, but it does ride on the Democrats being remotely competent as an organization for even a brief period of time.
Bernie is 83 and still very active, of course he doesn’t see the wisdom in asking the 70 year old who is otherwise in good health to step down. This isn’t the same situation as the late 87 year old Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was constantly in and out of the hospital.
That’s not the problem; the problem is there’s no guarantee that you’d get the Senate to approve a replacement in time.
Now that Manchin and Sinema are on the way out, what incentive is there for them to approve a Biden appointee to SCOTUS, especially with a particularly vengeful GOP administration coming in?
I would support this if I had any faith in the Democrats to get their shit together and actually appoint someone before Trump takes over. Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past them to replace her with Bill Barr in another attempt to win over never-Trumpers.
I’d be cool with her fucking off if we had a reasonable senate majority. otherwise, this is just handing a gift to the republicunts.
