THEY STARTED IT | Two Against, Two Support | MUST BE THE MONEY? NOT SO MUCH
March 31, 2017
BUT THEY STARTED IT!
|“There was no filibuster for CLARENCE THOMAS, whose Supreme Court confirmation hearings provoked a national uproar over sex, race and the behavior of powerful men. ANTONIN SCALIA, for a generation the court’s irrepressible conservative id, earned 98 votes in the Senate. RUTH BADER GINSBURG, now the patron saint of liberal jurisprudence, got 96. But with the Senate careering toward a chamber-rattling showdown over President Trump’s nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, the body’s long history of relative collaboration on Supreme Court matters has come to this: Next week, the last bastion of comity is expected to fall over a plainly qualified, mild-mannered nominee who had no major stumbles in his hearings.” Matt Flegenheimer with The New York Times reports that all the madness over Gorsuch started with a schoolyard classic: “They started it.”
BETTER TOGETHER
|Two more Democratic senators voiced their opposition to JUDGE GARLAND’S nomination today, setting the stage for what is expected to be a contentious confirmation fight next week on the Senate floor. SENATORS RICHARD BLUMENTHAL and BRIAN SCHATZ are putting their fingers in the air and saying “No No” to this nominee.
TEA FOR TWO AND TWO FOR TEA
|But some Dems aren’t so willing to drop the nuclear bomb on NEIL GORSUCH’S nomination. Two Democratic senators — JOE MANCHIN of West Virginia and HEIDI HEITKAMP of North Dakota — have solidly announced their support for the nominee. Senator Manchin is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate, facing reelection in 2018 in a state that TRUMP won by more than 40 points. The senators’ support lends a little bit of bipartisanship to the whole debacle, but not much. Two votes in support does little in the way of dissuading the other Dems from blocking the nomination.
PETTY PAYOFF
|“The $10 million effort to win federal appeals court JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH’S confirmation, funded by unknown donors to a conservative interest group called the Judicial Crisis Network, follows a successful $7 million effort last year to block President Obama’s nominee, MERRICK GARLAND. The group calls it ‘the most robust operation in the history of confirmation battles.'” Richard Wolf with USA Today reports that all the money that’s been poured into getting Gorsuch confirmed has shown little payoff. “There’s no evidence yet that it’s working,” Wolf writes.
400
|That’s the number of days JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA’S seat at the Supreme Court has been left empty. Colleen Shalby with the Los Angeles Times notes that the seat has been vacant longer than any other SCOTUS justice’s in nearly 50 years.
HBD
|Wishing JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO a happy early birthday! He turns 67 tomorrow — practically a young buck in SCOTUS years!