U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

I don't see what reason he would have not to do it, beyond "caution." Because the next several years will be about undoing his legacy, he might as well go out trying to add to his legacy and make them figure/fight it out in court.

Yes. Xpost

The best way to get the Senate to avoid a recess would be to telegraph his intention to make a recess appointment to the SCOTUS. One devoutly hopes he is playing rope-a-dope with McConnell.

i suppose maybe one reason the normally cautious obama would recess-appoint garland is that a recess appointment wouldn't be permanent:

Here’s how it would work. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states, “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” This has been used for Supreme Court vacancies before—William Brennan began his Court tenure with a recess appointment in 1956. Any appointments made in this fashion expire at the end of the next Senate session. So a Garland appointment on January 3 would last until December 2017, the end of the first session of the 115th Congress.

https://newrepublic.com/article/138787/obama-can-put-merrick-garland-supreme-court

Is that long enough for the Wisconsin redistricting case to get there?

There are few humans on the planet more invested in the dignity of the American System of Government than Barack Obama, it's his brain in a robot body that will be brushing radioactive dust off the Library of Congress in 1000 years. I think the chances of him trying an end-run like this are roughly the same as the earth collapsing to the size of a marble and shooting up Donald Trump's nostril.

well, there is that to consider

tbf he could also not wait for recess and just appoint Garland, with the argument being that the Senate has failed to provide its "advice and consent" - this would of course be immediately challenged in court etc.

Garland was a bluff, put in so that after the inevitable Clinton victory the Party would have some verbal ammunition against the newly- humble Republican Party. "We gave you Garland when you controlled the House and you didn't act, now as the minority party you must accept Lani Guinier's nomination and it's your own fault." Oops.

idk what exactly is required to technically keep the senate in session, but i guarantee mitch mcconnell does and will do so

A familiar surname:

ABC News has learned that Judge Neil Gorsuch has emerged as the leading contender to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, and his nomination is expected as early as next week, according to sources familiar with the selection process.

Gorsuch, 49, is currently a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, to which he was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2006 and confirmed by voice vote. He would be the youngest Supreme Court nominee in about 25 years.

Gorsuch clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. He attended Harvard Law, and has a Ph.D. from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. In legal circles, he’s considered a gifted writer. Like Scalia, he’s also both a textualist and an originalist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-neil-gorsuch-emerges-leading-contender-supreme-court/story?id=45005581

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/01/potential-nominee-profile-neil-gorsuch/

(his mother was Reagan's EPA administrator)

Like Scalia, he’s also both a textualist nitpicker and an originalist a backward thinker.

fixed

jesus christ

sucks to be this guy as now the ruthless dem minority will do everything they can to block his nomination even if it is blatantly unconstitutional right

*confirmation

He'll need 8 Dem votes to get his seat, not sure who those would be beyond some of the more obvious suspects

Ugh, makes me sick to my stomach every time this thread is bumped, that this bullshit the GOP pulled worked. I don't think I can read anything about the supreme court in the next four to eight years.

Gorsuch clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy

these credentials used to count as centrist – Byron White!

i'm getting the feeling Schumer will find him sufficiently "mainstream"

He'll need 8 Dem votes to get his seat, not sure who those would be beyond some of the more obvious suspects

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 12:19 PM (nine minutes ago)

GOP can nuke the 60-vote requirement any time they want iirc

a reminder that the filibuster still exists for SCOTUS nominees

sucks to be this guy as now the ruthless dem minority will do everything they can to block his nomination even if it is blatantly unconstitutional right

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 12:18 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

judging by how the cabinet nominee votes have been going there will be wonderful grandstanding then they'll vote for him

GOP controls the senate and the rules. mcdonnell can do with the rule on SCOTUS nominees what reid did a few years ago for most other votes

xp

Ugh, makes me sick to my stomach every time this thread is bumped, that this bullshit the GOP pulled worked. I don't think I can read anything about the supreme court in the next four to eight years.

― Jeff, Tuesday, January 24, 2017 12:19 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea it so gross. otoh obama did little to push things last year, in retrospect he was pretty weak on this whole thing i thought

mcconnell* xp

Even accepting the reality that GOP intransigence was world-historic during his terms, Barack Obama never thought that federal judiciary his highest priority. I read two days ago that Reagan nominated 60 percent of these judges, most of whom are still alive and screwing us over.

I honestly don't think McConnell will go the "nuclear option" for SC nominees.

also aren't the rules set at the beginning of each session? It's too late to revise the rules for the current session, no?

and honestly if a SC nominee battle does actually end in a radical revision of the filibuster rules I will be ambivalent, the abuse of the filibuster is pretty fucked up.

The rules are rarely tampered after the session starts, but the Senate can make its own rules however it sees fit, whenever it sees fit, and no one has the standing to stop them.

"honestly" is not an adverb I'd use in a sentence with "McConnell" in it

I want to see Presnit Trump go nuclear on McConnell for not destroying the filibuster so he can get his shiny toy now

lol sorry Alfred fair enuff

the biggest argument against McConnell and team killing the filibuster is that it will inevitably come back to bite them when Democrats take the majority

yeah I think McConnell is aware of the precariousness of their majority w Trump as the leader of the party

mm delicious:

Representing Alabama, Mr. Pryor in 2003 filed a supporting brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold a Texas law that made gay sex a crime. The position of the gay men challenging the law, Mr. Pryor wrote, “must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia.”

“The states should not be required to accept, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, that homosexual activity is harmless and does not expose both the individual and the public to deleterious spiritual and physical consequences,” Mr. Pryor wrote in the brief.

(his mother was Reagan's EPA administrator)

not just any administrator, of course. Anne Gorsuch Burford's tenure was filled with scandals and she was forced to resign. she was the first agency director in U.S. history to be cited for contempt of Congress.

but you know i bet her son is sooo much better so no big deal

omg I totally remember her from my teenage years under Reagan

fuck this

let's hope his scandal comes before he is confirmed

I was trying to remember where I'd heard "Burford." FUCK THIS

executive order 13777: every nomination must come loaded with some ironic detail that renders the choice absurd

O.G. Gorsuch is infamous to me thanks to the week of Doonesbury strips about the EPA staffer out on the window ledge.

Get ready:

The Judicial Crisis Network has said it will spend $10 million boosting Trump’s choice, targeting mostly Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2018 in states that Trump carried. “They’re going to have to choose between the interest of their constituents — who clearly wanted Donald Trump to choose the next Supreme Court justice — and Chuck Schumer’s plan to obstruct this vacancy for the next four years,” said Carrie Severino, the group’s chief counsel.

Many involved in the outside efforts are veterans of court battles dating back to the Bush administration. “You feel like a band, kind of like U2,” said Gary Marx, a Republican strategist involved in mobilizing conservative groups on behalf of the nominee. “You’ve done a number of world tours, a whole lot of albums and looking to release another major one.”

so that makes the Trump Court Songs of Innocence then

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kBLzqbviWD0/TyipL3Zw8HI/AAAAAAAAAe0/qH9gpt-jP94/s1600/itgetsbetter.png

So who's less terrible overall, Hardiman or Gorsuch?

Harriman: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/30/14439220/thomas-hardiman-souter

*Hardiman

Seems like Hardiman, just trying to figure out if there's a catch. But my gut says he picks Gorsuch anyway.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/01/potential-nominee-profile-thomas-hardiman/