Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is dead

[CosmicBob]

Or, he's playing eleven-dimensional chess again: maybe he doesn't want to use up the chances of a strong candidate on what will almost certainly be a futile exercise—in the hope that a President Clinton or Sanders would want to nominate said candidate. Instead, he might as well pick someone who will throw a strong light on the absurd extent of the Senate Republicans' opposition to doing their jobs.

Except what if they confirm Sandoval or whichever "moderate" he nominates in his chess game? I just wonder if he thinks the chance that Trump (or Rubio) will win is significant enough to do this.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Or maybe he nominates Sandoval (or someone else) because he (or she) matches the qualifications that he laid out in his SCOTUSblog post.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[Primula Baggins]

Sandoval is not popular with the far right. In fact I'm pretty sure there are at least a few elected Democrats to his right on a number of social issues.

I'm sure Obama would not nominate an unqualified candidate, nor would he allow an unqualified candidate's name to be leaked as a possible nominee. Sandoval served almost four years as a federal District Court judge. He was nominated by George W. Bush on the recommendation of Harry Reid. He resigned in order to run for Governor of Nevada.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sandoval has taken him out of the running (which I don't think is unexpected by anyone).

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-gov-bri ... or-scotus/

[superwizard]

Do you think the Obama administration was ever seriously considering Sandoval or that it was simply a tactic to show how preposterous the Republican refusal to consider any nominees?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I doubt we will ever know for sure. My personal feeling is that it is a little bit of both. Sandoval's record as a federal judge before he resigned to run for the governorship was not that different from Obama's nominee's. The biggest issue that would have been a problem for progressives is that he is not considered particularly labor-friendly, but on many other issues that are important to progressives, such as immigration reform and abortion, he is more in line with them than with conservatives.

[axordil]

What V-man said. The White House certainly knew he might well turn down the offer, which is one reason it was leaked before it was, in fact, made. That doesn't make it disingenuous, it makes it flexible. Sometimes these situations are like Schrodinger's Cat: their exact nature is indeterminate until something nudges it into certainty.

[Inanna]

And the the cat dies.


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[axordil]

Or lets it be known he would like to not be put in a box.

[Frelga]

Yes, the Pratchettian variant of the experiment, where the cat may be in one of three states - dead, alive, or bloody furious.

I am wondering who the cat is in this scenario.

[Inanna]

Not Scalia, definitely.


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

One surprisingly result of Scalia's passing:

Justice Clarence Thomas breaks 10-year streak, asks question in court

[CosmicBob]

TMZ got Thomas out on a DC street after lunch and he was absolutely jovial, laughing and joking with the reporter. You'd think he'd be a little reserved so soon after Scalia's death.

https://www.ijreview.com/2016/02/547285 ... mera-film/

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The latest scuttlebutt is that the White House is having the FBI vet Judge Jane Kelly of the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a native of Iowa who was effusively praised by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa when she was unanimously confirmed to her current position in 2013. Grassley, of course, is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and thus the person who would decide when and if to schedule hearings on her confirmation.

In the unlikely event that she is nominated and confirmed, Judge Kelly would become the first Supreme Court Justice who was primarily a criminal defense attorney before becoming a judge.

[CosmicBob]

It will be funny to see Grassley squirm his way around her. Will he say she was qualified for the Circuit Court, but not the Supreme Court?

There's no rational way to deny her a hearing at the very least.

[Cerin]

I fail to see the logic in this apparent strategy of trying to cater to Republicans in the vetting choices, since their stance against entertaining nominees isn't related to the notion of acceptability of those nominees, but is based on the half-baked principle that the next President should properly fill the vacancy because the American people have already started choosing him/her. (I realize this is just a farcical excuse to deny the Pres. his rightful role, but nevertheless, it's what they seem to be standing on.)

In other words, they don't have to squirm around Jane Kelly if they're standing on a principle unrelated to her qualifications. Grassley can simply say, 'Regardless of the eminent qualifications of this excellent nominee, we believe the right thing for the American People is to wait to consider nominees until after they elect their new President.' I think the Republicans have set themselves up rather well, so I don't see the point of the Pres.'s strategy.

[CosmicBob]

I think his strategy is to make them look like petulant children who are holding their breath in fits of pique.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There is a big difference between "catering to Republicans" and attempting to find a nominee who is eminently qualified, judicially consistent with the president's views and acceptable to the party in control of the Senate, who's job it is "advise and consent" about the nomination. That is what the president should do, and just because the GOP senators have said that they will not do what they are supposed to do doesn't mean that the president should not do what he is supposed to do. Nor does it mean that they either will not back down when faced with the reality of a such a nominee, or pay a steep price for failing to do so. It is completely logically to do so, and since Judge Kelly is eminently qualified and I think would be a very good justice, I would strongly support such a nomination.

Again cross-posted with CB.

[Dave_LF]

Constitutional question: If the current Congress rejects a nominee and does not accept an alternative, can the same candidate be put before the next Congress by the next president?

[CosmicBob]

I believe that Obama or the next president can re-submit anyone they want. But unless the makeup of the Senate changes, it would be pointless.

But to reject the nominee they would have to vote on the nominee, and McConnell has said they won't even do that.