U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

if republicans have a brain cell between the bunch of them they'll take garland as a gift and confirm him immediately

and then we all can abstain from the presidential election happily

The Oklahoma City bombing case in 1995 helped shape Judge Garland’s professional life. He coordinated the Justice Department’s response, starting the case against the bombers and eventually supervising their prosecution.

Judge Garland insisted on being sent to the scene even as bodies were being pulled out of the wreckage, said Jamie S. Gorelick, then the deputy attorney general.

“At the time, he said to me the equivalent of ‘Send me in, coach,’” Ms. Gorelick said. “He worked around the clock, and he was flawless.”

oh yay another judge from Harvard

It's possible he set Garland up as a moderate fall guy knowing HRC may nominate someone else

I'm going to have Judge Judy Garland in my head for the next three months.

It's not exactly a pick that will excite the more liberal wing of the party. Oddest thing is how old dude is.

also: he's not Scalia

That scotusblog post takes pains to note that while he would be the least liberal of those listed (back then), that by no means means he's conservative. Just not progressive. But at least he does not seem to be blindly agenda driven, which puts him at odds with at least Alito and Thomas.

his track record on detainees seeking redress seems less than ideal to me but honestly if Obama thinks he'll be good on the SC I'm inclined to trust the guy who knows more about the law than I do

I guess Hatch is a fan, and pushed for him here.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the longest serving Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered his own thoughts on who President Obama should nominate to fill the seat left open by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last week. “(Obama) could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man,” Hatch told the conservative news site Newsmax, before adding that “he probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.”

Who is playing the longer game of thrones con?

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/16/3760727/who-is-merrick-garland/

To be clear, Garland’s record does not suggest that he would join the Court’s right flank if confirmed to the Supreme Court. He would likely vote much more often than not with the Supreme Court’s liberals, while occasionally casting a heterodox vote. Nevertheless, as Goldstein wrote in 2010 when Garland was under consideration to replace the retiring liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, “to the extent that the President’s goal is to select a nominee who will articulate a broad progressive vision for the law, Judge Garland would be a very unlikely candidate to take up that role.”

I think this largely all depends on whether senate can be forced to consider and vote on a candidate. If they are then Garland offers GOP both a fig leaf and perhaps a less bad outcome than they might expect post election. If they won't consider anyone I'm not sure it matters too much who Obama's nominee is although someone like Garland will probably get a little more beltway support (but it's not like any of proposed candidates were likely to meet much resistance there).

With Republican nominee likely to be Trump and there being a good chance that the GOP might crumble in response their "let's wait and see til post election" intransigence loses its luster if they think they'll lose in landslide.

ffs, not the 63-year old, please

― k3vin k., Tuesday, March 15, 2016 11:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for real, this is kind of a bummer

i mean i don't really know much about srinivasan either but still

I don't know, for a position that's for life, I'm not sure I necessarily have a problem with someone older. Especially since an open seat on the court is so galvanizing.

BTW, which justices nominated by a Democratic president "ended up being conservative" on the Court?

Obviously best to have the best (which obv in my opinion is most progressive) justice for the longest time possible, but it's not like human longevity is not really predictable and there are other calculus at play for Obama. Assuming they thought Garland would be more difficult to oppose than Kelly/Srinivasan for GOP.

BTW, which justices nominated by a Democratic president "ended up being conservative" on the Court?

― Thomas H. Handy (dandydonweiner)

Frankfurter

iirc supreme court justices almost always move further to the left over their career xxp

he believed in a kind of judicial restraint that went out with OWH, Jr.

Obama intro in progress pretty airtight.

his track record on detainees seeking redress seems less than ideal to me but honestly if Obama thinks he'll be good on the SC I'm inclined to trust the guy who knows more about the law than I do

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 10:32 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'll take posts i'd never thought i'd read for $800

i like tune-yards fine but never really pictured her on the supreme court

lol obama says he nominated a serious man

prefer rabbi who was into the Airplane

lol

Between that article on Ginsburg's centrist tendencies that Soto posted on the 13th, and this nomination, I guess dreaming of a T. Marshall, Brennan type ever being on the court again will just stay a dream (for awhile at least). Will have to dream of a Dem victory for President and in the Senate, and then hope eventually we will get there, even via a centrist corporate Dem Pres or later via their successor. Maybe such a person could even be the first Black female on the court.

if McConnell thinks Trump will actually win (which he won't), he won't approve Garland. Then Hillary will win, the Dems will win the Senate, and Hillary will most likely nominate someone more lefty than Garland (and probably another woman, I wouldn't be surprised). But if McConnell is smart enough to accept that Trump is gonna lose, he'll cave on approving Garland. Dems win either way.

dreaming of a T. Marshall, Brennan type ever being on the court again will just stay a dream

worth remembering that Brennan could be Brennan because SCOTUS had more swing justices (Stewart, Powell, later O'Connor)

I need some convincing that Dems "win" if Garland gets approved, I guess. If there's no likely scenario in which a conservative justice gets nominated either under Obama or the next president, then the "win" for us is getting a more liberal justice.

if McConnell thinks Trump will actually win (which he won't), he won't approve Garland. Then Hillary will win, the Dems will win the Senate, and Hillary will most likely nominate someone more lefty than Garland (and probably another woman, I wouldn't be surprised). But if McConnell is smart enough to accept that Trump is gonna lose, he'll cave on approving Garland. Dems win either way.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, March 16, 2016 11:54 AM (5 minutes ago)

the latter is sort of a qualified victory in that more or less takes place on the GOP's playing field. you're so easily impressed by obama's chess skills but someone on the other side could just as accurately say that the GOP threat of obstruction forced obama to choose a more centrist justice than he would have otherwise. in a sense, since scalia was never going to be replaced by someone of his ideological orientation anyway, that's a win for them

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/03/16/initial-thoughts-on-president-obamas-decision-to-nominate-judge-merrick-garland-to-the-supreme-court/?postshare=9521458141503218&tid=ss_tw

this conservative thinks garland gets quickly taken up and confirmed after hillary beats trump in the general. (or maybe as it becomes obvious that trump will be the eventual (losing) nominee)

kevin otm, unless Obama also knows that Garland is secretly more left than he lets on or something.

You're assuming that any part of Obama thinks this nominee is going to go through rather than just sitting there making the GOP look terrible. "They could look better to some people (and worse to others) by not being obstructionist shitbags" was on offer for the last 7 years - the odds on it haven't changed.

#NoBorking.

^^^ piss off

that's all true, I just consider it a win in that any Dem nominee is *not* Scalia - the balance of the court shifts in favor of the left.

i don't think the two are mutually exclusive xxp

BUT DID HE GO TO AN IVY YES OR NO

that's all true, I just consider it a win in that any Dem nominee is *not* Scalia - the balance of the court shifts in favor of the left.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, March 16, 2016 11:11 AM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fate smiled on us when Scalia died, but failing to make the best of the situation is not a win. Getting another Kennedy when we could get a liberal is not a great outcome -- these guys sit for life and the political pendulum swings back and forth faster than they die off.

hatch on garland 6 years ago http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-hatch-idUSTRE6456QY20100506

Bad move if you care about criminal defendant's rights. Most don't.

I hate the phrase “impeccable credentials.”

anyone left of scalia shifts the median judge a ton, even if they're not super liberal

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/18/upshot/potential-for-the-most-liberal-supreme-court-in-decades.html

Οὖτις and AFarrell speak truth imo. If Senate Rs truly will not budge even an inch on an Obama nominee, then it doesn't matter whether Obama nominates Kanye West, Ted Cruz, or a leftover pork taco.

If Senate Republicans DO bother with hearings, and potentially even vote an Obama nominee out of committee, then those Senators will be massacred by rabidly frothing hardliners from their right, who regard any capitulation to the Hated Kenyan as treason. For various reasons it's better PR if they choose to self-immolate over a centrist choice like Garland than over, say, Lynch.

The next D president gets to nominate for Scalia's seat, the seat of the retiring RBG, or both. Hence the win/win prediction.

The next D president gets to nominate for Scalia's seat, the seat of the retiring RBG, or both. Hence the win/win prediction.

Alternatively, they never vote.

I hate the phrase “impeccable credentials.”
― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 1:20 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"incredible pectorals"

Re: "Never vote," as in never this year, never for the next five years, or never for the next nine years?

I know there's a right-wing talking point that nine is not a magic number, the court has done fine with eight or seven justices in the past.

But I'm trying hard to imagine the spectacle of one, two, three empty chairs on the court, with Republican obstruction the only obstacle - and that has no political consequences for the obstructers?

It partly depends how much you take the hated Kenyan stuff at face value. Sometimes it's hard to discern whether some portion of the GOP is still a sentient being or whether it's all just a mass of flailing, disembodied squid tentacles. I think it's dangerous to assume the latter though.