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Trump Nominates ‘Worthy’ Judge; Democrats Go Into Full-On Panic Mode

Posted on | February 1, 2017 | 2 Comments

 

Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review calls Neil Gorsuch a “worthy” appointee to the Supreme Court, “a well-respected conservative whose legal philosophy is remarkably similar to that of Antonin Scalia, the justice he will replace if the Senate confirms him.”

The “if” in that sentence expresses a contingency that is difficult to estimate at this point. Democrats are still butt-hurt because when Scalia died in an election year, the Republican majority in the Senate refused to take action on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for the vacant seat. Whatever one may think of that controversy, that was last year’s fight and Republicans won it — not only was Donald Trump elected president, but the Garland nomination didn’t hurt the GOP in Senate elections last fall, either. We might therefore conclude that the people ratified the Republican opposition to Obama’s SCOTUS nominee. Yet the Democrats in the Senate evidently don’t recognize the legitimacy of either the Trump presidency or the GOP Senate majority. Many vowed to invoke the filibuster against Trump’s court nominee, even before it was known who the president would nominate:

With Trump prepared to announce his nominee on Tuesday evening, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in an interview on Monday morning that he will filibuster any pick that is not Merrick Garland and that the vast majority of his caucus will oppose Trump’s nomination. That means Trump’s nominee will need 60 votes to be confirmed by the Senate. . . .
It’s a move that will prompt a massive partisan battle over Trump’s nominee and could lead to an unraveling of the Senate rules if Merkley is able to get 41 Democrats to join him in a filibuster. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also reminded her Twitter followers on Sunday night that Supreme Court nominees can still be blocked by the Senate minority, unlike all other executive and judicial nominees.

There are 48 Democrats in the Senate, so getting 41 votes to filibuster Gorsuch is a possibility. However, 2018 is going to be “a very bad midterm election for Senate Democrats,” where they will be defending 23 seats, including deep-red states (Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia) and swing states (Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia). If Democrats filibuster Gorsuch, this could very well mean the doom of incumbent senators like Bill Nelson (Florida), Claire McCaskill (Missouri) and Jon Tester (Montana). So the hysterical screeching from Democrats over the Gorsuch nomination (“a very bad decision,” says Nancy Pelosi) reflects the depth of their existential crisis in the Trump era. The people who elect liberals like Chuck Schumer and Amy Klobuchar are not the people who will decide the fate of Bill Nelson and Claire McCaskill. In a divided nation, the Democrat Party’s leaders are clearly out of touch with half the country.

(Via Memeorandum, with more commentary at Patterico, Right Wing News, Powerline, Hot Air and Twitchy.)



 

Category: Donald Trump, Senate, Supreme Court

Comments

2 Responses to “Trump Nominates ‘Worthy’ Judge; Democrats Go Into Full-On Panic Mode”

  1. Pelosi Makes a Muslim | Regular Right Guy
    February 1st, 2017 @ 11:21 am

    […] Trump Nominates ‘Worthy’ Judge; Democrats Go Into Full-On Panic Mode […]

  2. Campus Question – February 1, 2017 | BPI Campus
    February 1st, 2017 @ 6:01 pm

    […] the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake warned Democrats that a filibuster would hurt them in 2018, yet Robert Stacy McCain boasted that the November election results “ratified” Senate Republi…. Apparently that procedural door swings only one way. Rick Hasen weighs the risks and benefits of a […]