So without even talking to Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) or other members of his leadership team, McConnell laid out the Republican position within hours of the Scalia news. No Obama nominee would be approved before the election. No hearings, no vote, not even a meeting with the president's pick. The Senate would wait until voters had a say before acting.
It was a huge decision for McConnell to make unilaterally, one that puts Senate Republicans on a months-long collision course with Obama, Senate Democrats and liberal activists. It was also totally unlike him to act that hastily. The GOP leader is deliberative to a fault, typically thinking through every angle and every potential pitfall before saying a word. ...Politico
This would put Republican pols running in November in a lousy position with "independent" voters, wouldn't it? Not to mention where they put themselves legally as well as with many Republican centrists and voters... As Politico's reporters add, "Both Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his heir apparent, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), predicted that Republicans would eventually cave and could lose their majority over the issue. Progressive groups have begun running TV ads to bash vulnerable GOP incumbents."
The indignation appears to be spreading.
There is evidence that a Republican blockade could have significant political repercussions. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center over the weekend found that more than half of Americans favor holding hearings and a vote on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. About 1 in 3 Republicans believe that the Senate should act, the survey found. ...WaPo
Republicans have resorted to a move that may leave them in serious trouble. As the Times points out, specific candidates have been blocked in the past -- that's nothing new. But to block any hearing...?
“What is remarkable is the opposition is not to a particular candidate or even to the notion Obama will only nominate someone too extreme, but that he should not have any right to have a nomination considered,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
“This is not even like the drawn-out confirmation process that President Wilson faced with Louis Brandeis,” Professor Zelizer said. “This is the argument that nothing should even be considered.”
The White House on Tuesday warned that the Republicans were risking an extraordinary escalation of partisan rancor in a process that should be free of it.
“This would be a historic and unprecedented acceleration of politicizing a branch of government that’s supposed to be insulated from politics,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, who said on Twitter that every Supreme Court nominee since 1875 had received a hearing or a vote. ...NYT
McConnell? What does he deserve for tossing the Constitution into his potty?
Oh, tar and feathers along with leg irons and handcuffs. Hot sun. Naked on an ant hill in Frankfort KY park. Just for a start.
