When Neil Gorsuch heads up to the Senate this week it\u2019ll be interesting to see if his only enemies will be Democrats. Chuck Schumer has promised that he will force the Republicans to go nuclear.\u00a0 What he is saying is that he will not release the Democratic senators in red states to vote against a filibuster.\u00a0 The filibuster would prevent the nomination from being brought to the full senate for a simple majority vote.\u00a0 This is a tricky situation.\u00a0 There are seven Democrats up for re-election in 2018 who are in states that voted for Trump.\u00a0 If all of those voted against the filibuster and the vice president threw in his vote that would be sixty.\u00a0 But realistically it doesn\u2019t seem likely that all seven would cave.\u00a0 So if the Democrats can let a few of the most vulnerable vote for cloture it still allows few of the more secure senators to vote against.<\/p>\n
This leads to the nuclear option. The Dems under Harry Reed eliminated the filibuster for every confirmation approval type but the Supreme Court justices.\u00a0 This occurred because the republicans effectively blocked Obama\u2019s other court selections.\u00a0 Schumer at the time was hesitant about the decision.\u00a0 Now he is shown prescient.\u00a0 Trump has the potential of appointing another two (and possibly more) SCOTUS picks during his tenure.\u00a0 And eliminating the filibuster would make the appointments under the current congressional make-up almost routine.<\/p>\n
Great! What\u2019s not to love?\u00a0 Well, not so fast.\u00a0 If I were to guess, John McCain and Lindsey Graham would be the usual suspects in any revolt in the ranks.\u00a0 I can just imagine high flowery prose defending the sanctity of the filibuster as a sacred check and balance against the tyranny of the majority.\u00a0 Blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n
Okay, how does it end up? My guess, Trump tells McConnell to promise McCain and Graham either some senate perks or some pork for their states and they find a way to vote for the change.\u00a0 Then the same kabuki theater gets repeated during the actual approval when some other senators discover they have perks or pork that need to be addressed.\u00a0 Long story short, Vice President Pence comes over to the Senate and Gorsuch gets approved 51 \u2013 47.<\/p>\n
You can say that eliminating the filibuster is a dangerous play. In four years President Warren will be nominating Justice Obama for the bench and we\u2019ll be powerless to block that appointment.\u00a0 To that I say, whatever.<\/p>\n
You only get to worry about the bullet you dodge today. If you die today, writing on your tombstone that your bullet proof vest is on order would sound pretty pathetic. So the play is sound.\u00a0 Get Gorsuch in.\u00a0 Get Kennedy to resign and replace him with Tom\u00e1s de Torquemada as soon as is humanly possible. And add another conservative jurist as soon as superhumanly possible.\u00a0 So much damage has already been done that it will take eight years of a Trump administration just to get us back to the baseline of where we were under John Kennedy.<\/p>\n
So gentlemen of the Senate, get off your asses and get it done. I was promised a (sort of) conservative Supreme Court by Easter.\u00a0 But I\u2019m getting impatient.\u00a0 Let\u2019s shoot for Palm Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Neil Gorsuch heads up to the Senate this week it\u2019ll be interesting to see if his only enemies will be Democrats. Chuck Schumer has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[26,88,39,148,131,16],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-american-exceptionalism","tag-cabinet-picks","tag-populism","tag-rinos","tag-supreme-court","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n