If I were President Obama or a Democratic senator I would take two steps I.E Supreme Count nominee

[samrock]

1) I would stop all business in the senate until the republicans promise to hold hearings and a vote before the conventions.. Up or down hold a vote..

2) Have Obama and the nominee say if there is no vote by election day they will jointly withdraw the nominee. In that way if Hillary or Burnie looks like they will win Senate Republicans know they will get a liberal nominee if they do nothing..

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. The President can not stop business in the Senate. It is a coequal branch of government.

He is not their boss. They make their rules. It's in the Constitution.

The second suggestion isn't the way Obama Works. He is President and required to appoint someone to the position. If he is going to appoint someone and then pull them back at the election, that is playing politics with court appointments and makes him pretty much the same as the Republican Senate.

[samrock]

2. but the democrats in the senate can agree to stop all work

until there is a promise to hold hearings and a vote..

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. Then they would not be doing their jobs.

Democrats in the Senate should hold meetings with Merrick Garland. They should all do the jobs they were elected to do.

[BlueMTexpat]

5. +1! eom

[Hortensis]

8. As Agnostic says, and Democrats ARE holding meetings

with Judge Merrick Garland.

Apparently Judge Garland is extremely, extremely well respected in the legal world for his fine legal mind and the integrity of his mostly centrist decisions. The Kochs would be very unhappy to have him on what they plan to be their court. Very much an anti-Scalia.

Fwiw, as chief justice of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Garland has already been involved in making more law than he would be on SCOTUS. Most important cases are filed in that district and decided there, never to come before SCOTUS.

The GOP's space between that rock and hard place has become even more untenable. If they refuse to meet with and hold televised hearings on this nominee, it's going to hurt them.

[PoliticAverse]

3. As to point 1, if the Democrats in the Senate are united they could filibuster everything until...

the Republican leadership agrees to hold hearings certainly.

Point 2 assumes Obama doesn't want a "more liberal" nominee.

If neither "1" or "2" happens what can we determine from that?

[Johonny]

6. Honestly how much work are the Republicans doing now?

You can't stop nothing because nothing is most of their output.

[Igel]

7. A few points.

Obama was not in favor of up-or-down votes when he was a senator. He was all set to filibuster Alito.

During his tenure in the senate, other judges--with the same "nominate, advise/consent, appoint" procedure languished for years. Sometimes their nomination was withdrawn because nothing would happen. The (D) Senate, by up-to-minute standards, obviously was preventing the president from doing his job.

Mostly because they didn't like the results he'd achieve if they did what is so obviously the job of any co-equal branch, with is to submit to the president when he makes demands. (Yes, that's smart alec. Deal with it.)


Moreover, there's no timeline. Nobody was accusing Obama of shirking his duty for the nearly two months between the vacancy and the nomination. But, damn, he had to nominate somebody and he failed to do that for a while, right? And if he had taken a full 2 instead of nearly 2 months? Or 3? Or 8? At what point would he have suddenly become a horrible president for not acting on our timeline?

And that's the problem. We want Obama to have the right to do the appointing, with the obligation to conform and comply imposed on the other. If it's somebody we don't like, they still have no rights. We have all the rights. And that's not an attitude that is compatible with democracy. That is the kind of progressivism that Orwell despised in the '30s, which he thought as fascism's twin because they differ not in attitude or methods but simply in goals.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

9. Well said! n/t

[moondust]

10. And ask Senate Republicans

what the cutoff date is for when they and the President can stop doing their jobs. One year exactly before an election? Two years? Why not four years? And why doesn't the Constitution specify a date?