The U.S. Supreme Court

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Procedures_Reform_Bill_of_1937

http://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/his1005spring2011/files/2011/03/courtact.jpg

Yanksplainin' to dmac

lol

http://fee.org/media/12131/fourhorsemen-2.jpg?anchor=center&mode=crop&height=466&widthratio=2.0171673819742489270386266094&rnd=130875139150000000

:)

the Four Horsemen of Judicial Reaction

Republicans and conservative columnists are also vowing revenge for 2013, when Reid (during period Dems had control of the Senate) eventually invoked nuclear option to allow lower level judges and certain Exec branch appointees to be voted on by mere majority, rather than a filibuster-proof one. Republicans were blocking lots of nominees and this Reid move allowed a number of Obama appointees to finally get a vote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-nomination-process-sure-to-be-an-epic-debate/2016/02/14/63cd2cd6-d32a-11e5-b195-2e29a4e13425_story.html

In 2013, when Democrats were in the Senate majority, they forced a controversial rules change, invoking the so-called “nuclear option,” to allow the approval of ­lower-court judges by a simple majority. Those changes did not apply to Supreme Court nominations, which can be filibustered, and are therefore subject to the higher 60-vote threshold. Republicans were furious about the 2013 changes, and that residual anger could be a huge obstacle for any Obama nominee.

@chrisgeidner
OMG! CNN just asked about "The Supremes" episode of The West Wing, and whether RBG might retire and both Dems and GOP would get a nominee.

‏@dick_nixon
That program is the worst influence I've ever seen. Every day we get letters from kids who think it's the truth.

Do members of the Supreme Court ever fly on the same plane?

ride tandem bicycles iirc

They use Air Force Nine, obv.

http://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/sites/motorcyclecruiser.com/files/styles/medium_1x_/public/import/header_images/1007_crup_01_oo%2Bharley-davidson_sidecar%2B.jpg?itok=IHf3K7fs

Josh Marshall on what Chuck Schumer actually said in 2007:

"We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts of Justice Ginsburg replaced by another Alito. Given the track of this President and the experience of obfuscation at hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court at least, I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances. They must prove by actions not words that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not."

http://i.imgur.com/C7iWhr6.png

deep thoughts from a Corner-ite:

What if this year’s elections result in a Republican president — Ted Cruz, say — and a Democratic Senate? After the new Senate convenes, Obama would still have a couple of weeks left in his term, so he could nominate some extreme living-Constitutionalist, who would surely be confirmed. And when another vacancy came up and Cruz sent the Senate a nominee, they could say, “Drop dead! You wouldn’t consider Obama’s nominee, so we won’t consider yours.”

republicans could still filibuster

I will be pleasantly surprised if they don't -- I'm not convinced the political fallout for them would be all that high, but maybe I'm underestimating voters. Republicans know what's at stake, and they don't pay much mind to civility, consistency, bipartisanship etc. anymore.

Cruz will def filibuster

yeah I'm not persuaded that filibustering hurts the GOP.

Majorities don't filibuster.

under the hypothetical circumstances we're discussing the dems have won the senate

I got that that was where you were coming from, but folks seemed to be drifting afterwards...

I hate the guy, but that'd be a helluva note for Harry Reid to go out on.

i have not been paying attention, is it remotely possible that dems will win the senate this election?

definitely possible if a presidential victory leads to any sort of wave election. it's the 2010 seats that are up this year which are mostly republicans who themselves rode in on 2010 midterm R-wave.

Yeah Dems can take the Senate, looking likely imo

the House, not so much

Dems taking senate is hardly a lock, but resistance to a Supreme Court nom plus Donald Trump in the general election would help a lot

they don't pay much mind to civility, consistency, bipartisanship etc. anymore.

I read the bolded part as "birthright citizenship", but that works too.

i'm 99% sure feingold will recover his senate seat here in wisconsin, for one thing.

...if anyone wants to join me in spitting on ron johnson as he cleans out his office, PM me.

I'm sure his son has.

the President Cruz + a democratic senate scenario though would be actually impossible

probably! i can kind of imagine pres trump + democratic senate b/c of the strange nature of trump's constituency

Cruz will def filibuster

I hope he does so as a lone crusader, like Capra's Mr. Smith, and continues speaking for days on end, until spent, exhausted, his nerves strung out on Benzedrine and his mind maddened by irritation from his catheter, he begins babbling all the nonsense that lies buried in his subconscious and eventually is hauled off on a stretcher, thus convincing the country that he is a dangerous megalomaniac and a madman. What a treat!

from the CNN crawl:

Obama: I will nominate somebody

Are you that somebody?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA

left wing feel me
right wing feel me

Mr. Justice Soto will remember that majorities don't filibuster.

58% chance of a vote, 41% chance of a confirmation of an obama nom, 30% chance of a confirmation of the first nom according to the betting markets

http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-scotus-nomination

White House: Obama 'regrets' his filibuster of Supreme Court nominee

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/269719-white-house-obama-regrets-his-filibuster-of-supreme-court-nominee

I'm sure if he wouldn't have filibustered back then, today's GOP would remember it and have his back now

Handy graphic

deological shifts of large magnitude have been rare. And when they’ve occurred, they’ve led to drag-out fights for Senate confirmation. Consider the battle over Clarence Thomas’s nomination. Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall, marking the largest ideological shift in the country’s history.

More recent appointments have replaced outgoing justices with people with similar ideology. There was almost no ideological difference between Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Chief Justice John Roberts, who replaced him. Justice Sotomayor was a nearly perfect ideological match for Justice David Souter.

But the replacement of Justice Scalia with an Obama pick could alter the court far more than the replacement of Justice Marshall with Justice Thomas. Because of the current composition of the court, the replacement of Justice Scalia with a more liberal justice would alter the center of the court substantially.

Supreme Court scholars often talk about the “median justice,” who can help secure a five-vote majority on controversial cases. Currently, that median justice is Justice Kennedy, whose voting record has been ranked as weakly conservative in recent years — and as weakly liberal last term.

If Justice Scalia is replaced by a justice who votes with the court’s current liberal block, the new median justice will become Stephen Breyer, the most liberal median justice since 1937, when the scholarly rankings begin. If a justice more conservative than Mr. Breyer is confirmed, that new justice is still likely be the most liberal median justice in nearly 50 years.

I knew Douglas was pretty lib but no idea he was pretty much on his own.

Yeah I was kinda surprised by those charts.

Chart makes you realize how consequential a swing Court losing Fortas (who was also enormously liberal) and Johnson not getting to nominate Warren's replacement was. Court almost immediately shifted right and has never truly looked back.

Yeah, and growing up in the eighties I always heard about the "swing justices" (Powell, Blackmun, White on certain questions); it's impossible to imagine more than one these days.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said President Obama should nominate someone to fill the court's vacancy in a Wednesday interview with Phoenix television station KSAZ.

"I don't agree," O'Connor said of Republicans who believe the next administration should be responsible for a nomination. "I think we need somebody there now to do the job and get on with it."

O'Connor, who was the first woman appointed to the nation's highest bench, agreed it's odd to have a vacancy in an election year. But, this is the President's role, she said.

"You just have to pick the best person you can under these circumstances, as the appointing authority must do. And it's an important position and one we care about as a nation, as a people," O'Connor said. "And I wish the President well as he makes choices and goes down that line. It's hard."

It would be more than a year for a vacancy. New president wouldn't nominate anyone until they took office. Even if they said before the election who they'd pick, it doesn't happen officially until after the inauguration. And then you have to go through the weeks and weeks of the confirmation process. That seat would sit empty until at least April 2017.

You all know this, why am I wasting space? I can't get over how silly the GOP is acting over this.

Clearly the most fair solution is just to wait for a Republican president and a Republican congress and a far-right wing nominee, then let them onto the court with no debate. I think we can all agree that would be most equitable to and considerate of all parties involved. In fact, to be really fair, we should probably just appoint a Republican president now, to avoid the waste of an election, then let them run things unobstructed for a while. Then after 8 or 16 or 24 years of GOP, we can have a fair, open debate about whether or not to hold another election, depending, of course, on the quality of the democratic nominees, because we wouldn't want to undo all that progress.