I don't understand the argument about saving the "filibuster" for the next SC nomination??

[kentuck]

Chuck Todd (MSNBC) was saying that the Democrats should let Gorsuch go thru and then save their filibuster for the next nomination. If the Repubs threaten to use the "nuclear option" on Gorsuch, why would they not threaten to use it on the next one?? So, it seems to me that if they are going to go "nuclear", make them do it this time. Why wait until they have a 5-4 Court?

Can someone explain the merits of their argument?

[old guy]

1. Don't look at me!

[SharonAnn]

41. They will just "go nuclear" then. There's nothing to be gained by surrendering now. fight!

[Qutzupalotl]

2. The thinking is that it would force the next appointee to be moderate.

As if Gorsuch is moderate.

I disagree. Trump is on his heels with the AHCA disaster and the Russia investigations. I say hit them while they're down. They won't be in power forever.

Worst case, we could add two more justices to get an 11-member Supreme Court!

[Phoenix61]

3. I sure can't

I agree with you. If they want to let that cat out of the bag, go for it.

[janx]

4. Thanks for your question. I don't understand it either.

If the filibuster process is useless now since the "nuclear option" exists, why is a filibuster being considered at all?

[pnwmom]

13. The nuclear option has existed for decades. Filibusters have taken place anyway.

What is stranger is the idea that we shouldn't filibuster because they "might" exercise the nuclear option.

We would be allowing just their threat to prevent us from opposing Gorsuch. They would never have to exercise the option under those circumstances -- just continually threaten it.

It's time for us to call their bluff.

[onenote]

18. Apart from Abe Fortas, when was a Supreme Court nomination the subject of a filibuster?

[pnwmom]

21. Robert Bork. n/t

[PoliticAverse]

24. Bork was not filibustered. n/t

[haele]

25. No, he withdrew before he could be filibustered. Crying about how unfair the process was.

He had some Nixon skeletons in his closet he didn't want to admit to, even though his role in that administration was already pretty well known.


Haele

[PoliticAverse]

29. He did not widthraw his nomination. The full Senate voted on it and he was rejected 58-42.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork_Supreme_Court_nomination

[haele]

31. I stand corrected...

[Bows] The last I read of him was his book "The Tempting of America" way back in the day - as he wrote that he was planning on withdrawing if there was going to be filibuster, I remembered it wrong.

Haele

[metroins]

5. I agree with you

Chuck Todd is trying to play chess.

It's stupid because politics sn't a game. There isn't only 1 filibuster or one nuclear option.

If they invoke the rule, it's not against the law, so the courts won't be able to step in and they will just use it again.

I say balls to the walls, attack the GOP on bad policy. Work with them on good policy.

[Yupster]

46. Chuck is trying to play chess

He's about to get checkmated in two moves, and he's trying to figure out how to win a pawn.

Gorsuch is going to get voted onto the court.

The chance to stop him was to find something on him. Sexual abuse, rape, drug abuse, payola.

Once that didn't work, he's getting voted in.

If Democratic senators filibuster, they change the rules the next day and shrug. If they don't filibuster, they vote him on.

Whatever they choose, the Republicans will shrug. Won't make any difference to the next opening either.

[JCanete]

6. Yes, it is a bullshit argument with no real merit being peddled by the media, who's corporate

owners would love a Gorsuch on the court.

[Xipe Totec]

7. It's a bullshit argument

The fact of the matter is that if you can make the Democrats back away from a filibuster by threatening to pull the 'nuclear' option then, effectively, you have no filibuster anymore.

So either use it and let them go nuclear, or don't use it and leave them the option to threaten to go nuclear on the next vote, and the next vote and the next....


It is a distinction without a difference.

[kentuck]

10. Exactly!

If they use it to get a 5-4 majority, it would be even better to use it to get a 6-3 majority.

I see no logic in their argument at all.

[femmocrat]

8. I can't explain it because I think it's foolish!

I agree with you. Gorsuch is terrible. Dems should do all they can to block him. There may not BE another nomination, so why wait? If they can block Gorsuch, maybe drumpf will learn a lesson and the next nominee will be a true moderate. (Well, maybe!)

Wasn't it Schumer who said if the nominee is bad, you don't change the rule, you change the nominee (paraphrasing)? I like that they dems are being feisty and pulling together on this dreadful nomination.

[Angry Dragon]

9. It is past time to call the republicans on ALL their bullshit

[Progressive dog]

11. Chuck seems to be trying to help the Republicans nt

[Warpy]

12. You mean "keep their poweder dry?"

They've been doing that since the 90s and most of us have realized there isn't any powder to keep dry any more.

Gorsuch is appalling. They need to filibuster.

[kentuck]

15. They only need 60 votes to stop debate...

...and then they can vote. That is the present-day "filibuster". If they can't get 60 votes, they don't deserve to be on the Court.

[onenote]

14. Here's what I understaned it to be

Rightly or wrongly, Gorsuch has made it through the confirmation process with barely a scratch as far as the general public is concerned. His elevation to the court will not change the balance as it existed when Scalia was appointed. In the absence of a general outcry against him, forcing the Repubs to go nuclear will seem gratuitous.

By waiting until the next vacancy, the Democrats may have an argument that whomever is selected will in fact be a balance shifter (assuming the next vacancy is from the liberal wing of the party or even Kennedy). That will give the Democrats the higher ground when the repubs threaten to go nuclear and may force them into someone more in the mold of a Kennedy than another Scalia clone.

Not saying I endorse this approach, but I understand why some Democrats might feel it makes more sense than to force the repubs to go nuclear over Gorsuch, someone who polling data suggest is not broadly opposed.

[kentuck]

19. As if the balance wasn't shifted with Scalia?

And they want someone to replace Scalia that thinks like Scalia. That balance was a disaster.
Look at all the terrible right-wing decisions!

Democrats should fight harder to stop that from happening again. If they go nuclear, then deal with it at that time.

[gratuitous]

16. I don't agree with the "logic"

But it seems that since Gorsuch would be taking the Scalia seat on the Supreme Court, the Court would revert to the status quo ante, and just never you mind about how that seat should have been filled by the previous president.

[kentuck]

20. Since they unconstitutionally blocked Merrick Garland...

...the least the Democrats should demand is a nominee as "moderate" as Merrick Garland.

[gratuitous]

23. Or just insist on Garland himself

But yeah, if the Republicans are determined to go "nuclear," I say let's get it out there right now and quit lollygagging.

[PoliticAverse]

26. It wasn't unconstitutional, which is why the Obama administration didn't challenge it...

at the Supreme Court. You can't force "consent". As Ruth Bader Ginsberg pointed out when asked about the issue:
What would be the point, they could just vote against him anyway.

[kentuck]

33. I think it could have been argued that it was obstructed....

and not addressed in a judicial amount of time. You are correct that the Constitution does not put a time limit on a judge's nomination.

So, if that is the case, there is no time limit for the Democrats to take up the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, right?

[PoliticAverse]

34. Right. The problem for the Democrats is that the Republicans have a 52 senators and don't really...

need the Democrats' consent for anything in this regard. They still may be able to stop the nomination
if they filibuster it and the Republicans don't actually have 50 votes to use the "nuclear option".

[kentuck]

39. Good point!

There may be some Republican Senators that choose to not go nuclear. That would be a double whammy for the Repubs if that were to happen.

[denverbill]

17. There is no merit at all to that argument.

There are more than a few right-wing Democrats who like having justices that side with corporations over people. Many of the same Senators who during Bush's term caved in and gave all of Bush's nominees 'up or down votes' demanded by Republicans, barely raised a peep when Republicans refused to even hold hearing for Republican Merrick Garland. Now once again Republicans demand an up-or-down vote on their nominee and my guess is right-wing Democrats will reward Republicans once again for their shitty partisan behavior.

Force them to go nuclear now, and at least they can never filibuster our nominees in the future.

[HoneyBadger]

22. Gorsuch was picked as a somewhat centrist choice vs Scalia

If the Reps are made to go nuclear, Gorsuch will be replaced with someone more right wing. No one from either party wants to go nuclear because somewhere down the line it will suck. 30-50 years for a SCOTUS to serve is nothing in the timeline of America. Ask any 16 year old.

That would be the argument regardless of whether or not you or I buy it.

[haele]

27. Gorsuch isn't centerist. He's a genial Corporatist who lives in the pocket of the Heritage Jerks.

He will happily overturn any Civil Rights that get in the way of his personal power or his enablers; worse than most of the current crop of Right-wingers, because at least with a Christianist or a Nationalist, you know where they're coming from.

Haele

[PoliticAverse]

28. Gorsuch won't be replaced he'd just be confirmed with 50+ votes if they go nuclear. n/t

[HoneyBadger]

35. Because the POTUS is not allowed to withdraw a nominee

And because Trump would never dare to try such a thing.....uh huh

.....Harriet Miers, nominated in 2005 to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. After a little over three weeks of bad publicity, President Bush withdrew her nomination, and nominated Justice Samuel Alito.....W also withdrew John Roberts name as an associate justice in order to nominate him as Chief Justice after Chief Justice Rheinquist died.

[PoliticAverse]

37. A nomination can certainly be withdrawn at any time, it just isn't going to happen in the Gorsuch

case unless they can't get the nomination through. Gorsuch really is the pick they want.

[HoneyBadger]

44. To the right of Scalia is what they really want

[Freethinker65]

30. If Merrick Garland had been seated on the SCOTUS and Gorsuch was nominated next

Gorsuch, even being the conservative corporatist creep that he is, might have been confirmed. At first he just seemed like a typical qualified conservative jurist, now however he seems to be smarmy evasive hardline SOB. No use saving any filibuster now.

[HootieMcBoob]

32. Make them nominate a moderate

For ages Democrats have nominated moderate judges to the court because they knew that they needed to pass a 60 vote threshold. Republicans on the other hand nominate the most obscenely right wing justices that they can find because they know Democrats will not filibuster. There are two sets of rules here. Also there are more than enough reasons to filibuster Gorsuch. The biggest of which is that that Trump is under investigation for what may eventually amount to treason. There's the fact that Garland was not even given meetings by Republicans and finally there's Gorsuch himself.

[onenote]

48. Not going to happen. They'll go nuclear before they allow themselves to be defeated by the Democrats

Rightly or wrongly (and I think wrongly) the general public (not those on either side that care deeply about these things) doesn't seem to care whether he gets confirmed or not (just as they didn't seem to particularly care about Garland's fate). That's a good thing in that the public probably won't react adversely to an attempt to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination. But its a bad thing because they also won't react adversely to the repubs going nuclear, which means the repubs won't hesitate to do so in order to give Trump a desperately needed victory.

[OnDoutside]

36. There's no guarantee that if the Democrats held off this

time, what's to stop the Republicans picking an worse right wing nut next time and then pressing the nuclear option anyway ? Then they'll have 2 more right wing nut jobs. However in the long term, if the move towards progressive politics continues, the right won't be able to stop the left. They know that too. Call their bluff.

[crappyjazz]

38. Mike Malloy had the same idea

Referred to RBG's age and they should save the fight in case Trump gets to nominate her replacement

[moflower]

40. Rs need 50 votes to go nuclear...call the bluff

They may not have 50 to go nuclear

[onenote]

47. There is no conceivable way the repubs don't go nuclear if that's what it takes to confirm Gorsuch.

The idea that they wouldn't have the votes is absurd. The downside, if there is any, of going nuclear, is far outweighed by the downside of not being able to confirm Trump's first SCOTUS nomination. If they don't confirm him, how do you think it plays out? The seat being left vacant indefinitely? Garland getting nominated by Trump? Someone "better" than Gorsuch getting nominated?

My prediction: a bare minimum of Democrats vote for cloture, allowing an up/down vote on Gorsuch in which many of those who voted for cloture turn around a vote no on confirmation, thereby allowing them to say they did what the repubs refused to do for Garland -- allowed an up/down vote.

Is this the "right" strategy? I don't think there is a "right" strategy. Any way you slice it, Gorsuch gets confirmed.

[0rganism]

42. a filibuster that can be dismantled anytime by a majority vote is no filibuster at all

might as well use it and get rid of it now imho

[drray23]

43. Idiotic argument for many reasons.

If we force mcconnel to go nuclear and remove the fillibuster they may get gorsuch. However, it is not so far fetched to think that Trump may not get another nomination for a while. If we retake the senate in 2018 then we will have the upper hand if they have removed fillibuster. I am sure mc connel is thinking about that possibility.. i say, call their bluff and fillibuster gorsuch.

[Talk Is Cheap]

45. The explanation for this is: propaganda...