Guys, the Constitutional provision doesn't let you advise and consent on the process, just on individual nominees. This dereliction of duty is bald politics at its most crass, leaving the SCOTUS under-staffed and prone to tie decisions for the chance to maybe have a President Trump or President Cruz make a nomination to replace Scalia.
And, doubtless, should it instead be a President Clinton or President Sanders, they'll come up with other reasons. Because the party of "The Government Is Broken" has to keep making sure it is.
GOP Judiciary: No hearing on Obama court nominee
Senators on panel say they’ve reached a concensus: no hearing.
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Ur last line is truth.
They are outright telling lies. "The American people should decide" – umm, that is what we did when Obama won the election.
+Lauchlin MacGregor The problem being that if you are going to behave like That Man is not the legitimate POTUS, then it follows you can't let him actually nominate someone to the court. Except for the other two times he did. But then the GOP could only filibuster, not shut down the whole process.
History will not treat these guys well.
+Dave Hill it's all part of their 8 year long campaign. They've catered to the Limbaugh/Hannity fan crowd, by telling them that their opinions are true.
I would like to see a nominee for the people, someone from the middle of the road, not a FAR right wingnut nor a give'em everything FAR left bleeding heart. The middle, closer to all citizens than any body else.
Hey, fellows, both parties have done this. It is unfortunate that both parties nominate judges based on political ideology rather than judicial competence, but that became assured many years ago when the Court decided to make law rather than interpret it.
+Ted Rice precedent does not make something acceptable. It simply means that someone else was a jerk before they were. If someone else steals a car, does this allow you to steal a car also?
http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/politifact%2Fphotos%2FFilibuster_charts.jpg
And certainly this is not an even playing field.
+Ted Rice I have to disagree with you, Ted. While both parties have played politics with the confirmation process (even assuming judicial competence and ideology are exclusive qualities), the GOP in the last seven years have raised it to a fine (or foul) science, to the extent that the Democratic-majority Senate under Reid had to go "nuclear" on federal court nominations in order to get anyone moved forward into long-vacant roles.
Sandbagging the SCOTUS renewal process, to the extent of not even holding hearings on any proposed candidate, ratchets that up a distinct tick or two.
I also disagree with the idea that the Court "makes" vs "interprets" the law, as I find that definition tends to shift depending on whose ox is being gored.
Well, perhaps it won't matter until there are 4 vacancies and we hit yet another GOP created constitutional crises.
+Stan Pedzick Is there a constitutional quorum for SCOTUS? Or does it then become "This court is far too small to justly consider Constitutional issues, so we should ignore it because government is broken" time?
No I think it's a SCOTUS rule only, so I guess it all comes down to how the vote to lower the Quorum rule.
Congress has modified the number of justices required already in our history.
Every president is on his way out, either in less than 8 years or less than 4 years…and so by this definition a lame duck! Wait for the next election.
+Greg Stockton the first part you said makes sense…but the logic to get to the second part is lost on me. By your logic, we should never actually nominate and consider anyone because as soon as the President enters office, they should be considered a lame duck.
+Lauchlin MacGregor Sorry..that was my trollish nature coming out…and was exactly my point, though in sarcasm.
+Greg Stockton you forgot the </sarcasm> tag 😛 Point well taken and then bluntly addressed by my followup .:)
The only logic they seem to have is "we've given your President his due time, now it's our President's turn.
What gets me more is that these same people live (and seemingly want to die) by the Constitution. Also, they seem to have self proclaimed pride in America …yet when America elects a President whose job is clear in that document, they claim special handling and have absolutely no pride in the results of the makeup of our country.