Remember how Obama nominated respected moderate Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, but the Republicans in the Senate refused to even hold hearings on him, giving the excuse that they should let the next president pick the new member of the Supreme Court. Because, you know, they really wanted to give the people a voice in the matter.
So the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter stating that the voters would decide the ideological direction of the court and promising that they would not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until a new president took office. As a result, Garland has gone longer than any Supreme Court nominee in history without a vote (or even any discussion or confirmation hearings).
Well, now that the people’s voice is becoming clearer and it is looking like Trump is going to go down in flames, the GOP is afraid that Clinton might do just what they said should happen, and pick someone more ideologically liberal to be on the court.
So this week, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley did a sudden about face and said that in the lame duck session after the election (just to make sure) but before the new president is sworn in, he might be open to considering changing his mind. His statement is a monument of wishy-washy flip-floppery:
[If] we have the election and the majority of the Senate changed their mind about doing it in the lame duck as opposed to Jan. 20, I don’t feel that I could stand in the way of that. But I don’t think I can promote that idea.
Uh, by saying that, isn’t he actually promoting the idea?
I guess “the people” get a voice only if they happen to vote Republican.
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Wow. Just wow. I disagreed with their stance when they took it and thought that they should vote on whomever the president (who was elected by the people) nominated, especially because Scalia died basically a full year before another president would be sworn in. That being said, I could understand their position and would even have agreed with it had the death been much later in the year.
So for them to now even consider holding hearings during a lame duck session is the ultimate in hypocrisy and lunacy. This is low, even for Republicans. Wow.
Obama did something brilliant and dangled a moderate carrot in front of them just to see what they would do, and they didn’t blink. I thought to myself in March that they should really have approved him because the next president was going to nominate someone they dislike much more than they would have disliked Garland.
Heck, even holding hearings and a vote now would be acceptable to me. Hypocritical, but acceptable. But to literally wait until after election day just to be 100% sure and then to change your stance about letting the people have a voice after they’ve already had their say has got to be the worst political hypocrisy that I’ve ever heard of.
I wonder how they’ll like the sound of this… Justice Barack Obama.
I predicted this months ago. Not sure if I did it on this site. I’m almost hoping now that they don’t and that Clinton will pick a liberal judge to replace Scalia. So sweet!
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