Quote:
Originally Posted by phma
Is appointing conservative judges a bipartisan issue ? Is that what the Senators want to do, appoint conservative judges that view the constitution different than liberal activist judges that Dems appoint.
I'm not getting the bipartisan argument or point you are trying to make.
If there is any gov. waste on the issue it would be to squander the power given to the President to select his appointments. That would be a waste.
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Judiciary appointments have rarely been bi-partisan. Party divisions over them have happened almost as soon as we became an independent nation.
In the past, if Congress couldn't agree on a judge, the guy was simply replaced with another nominee who was usually more acceptable to both parties, and was seated.
Almost always, there was some valid reason why the uproar over the first choice happened, and over the years, there were many reasons. Some are no longer valid now, like a judge's favorable views of slavery, and some reasons are still valid.
All that changed in February 2016 when Antonin Scalia suddenly died, though. Obama nominated a judge who was well known for impartiality to Congress, but Mitch McConnell refused to allow a Senate committee to be formed to either confirm the nomination or deny it.
Since that had never been done before ever in our history, there was nothing in the Senate rules of order that forbade McConnell to do this, so it locked then entire nomination process down for the rest of Obama's term.
The Democrats already saw what following the rules did when Kavanaugh was confirmed by the narrowest vote ever garnered by a SCOTUS nominee. In the past, Kavanaugh would have been denied and someone else would have replaced him.
But the Democrats are no longer willing to follow the rules.
If the McConnell ploy can be done in the Senate, it can also be done in the House, as both houses have to confirm the nominees. The Speaker of the House can refuse to create a confirmation committee just as McConnell did in the Senate.
McConnell can do nothing about this, as the House is only playing by the non-rule McConnell used first. Since all federal judges are confirmed by the same set of rules, the rules apply to all of them.
If the Republicans want their judges, they will have to change the rules first to get them.
And that won't happen for as long as McConnell is the Senate leader. Losing that advantage for Mitch McConnell would be like poking his eye out with ah ice pick.
Sooner or later, McConnell's grip on the Senate will end, and when it does, a new rule that forbids this trick will be passed by both houses. And future nominees will either be confirmed or not, just as it should be, and always was, before Mitch pulled his stunt.
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