LIVING IN THE 21ST CENTURY DOIN SOMETHIN MEAN TO IT | The Power of Trump | The King of 2016 | The End of Merrick Garland
November 11, 2016
I'M LIVING IN THE 21ST CENTURY DOIN' SOMETHING MEAN TO IT
|David Lauter of the Los Angeles Times delivers us a primer on executive power, describing all the areas in which the president-elect could act quickly and where he could not. Lauter covers everything from Roe, to healthcare, to immigration, to climate change, to the imprisonment of HILLARY CLINTON.
STOP TRIPPIN I'M TRIPPING OFF THE POWER
|In The New York Times, Eric Posner considers the limits to Trump’s power, which he once assumed wouldn’t be as great as it is today. Posner writes, “That was then. Because MR. TRUMP enjoys Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, his power is even greater. If he can get Republican members of Congress to go along with him, he can do pretty much anything not banned by the Constitution.”
OFF TO THE RACES
|“Republican victories in Tuesday’s election are nearly certain to alter the Supreme Court’s docket, reviving conservative ambitions and dashing liberal hopes, even before President-elect DONALD TRUMP nominates a successor next year for the court’s open seat.” Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports.
THE ACE OF SPADES
|The Senate majority leader MITCH MCCONNELL is poised to mold the Supreme Court for a generation, and there may be nothing at all that Democrats can do about it. Burgess Everett with POLITICO writes, “Not only that, there are indications that McConnell’s calculated gamble may have helped elect DONALD TRUMP and keep his Senate under Republican control.”
HARD CHOICES
|Choices, decisions, potatoe, potatoe. No matter how you slice and dice it, SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL has to pick a lane now that he’s crowned himself king of 2016. Carle Hulse with The New York Times reports, “Before the election, it was clear that Democrats were looking at the very real prospect of scrapping the filibuster to keep Republicans from blocking the Supreme Court nominees of a PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON.” But now that the tables are turned, and Democrats are going to want to cling to that filibuster at every turn, will Senate GOP leadership eliminate the 60-vote threshold to push their agenda through Congress? More specifically, will McConnell and his colleagues keep the filibuster or hew to tradition? Hulse: “Mr. McConnell is what is known on Capitol Hill as an institutionalist, a strong believer in the traditions and practices of the Senate. He was very critical of the decision by SENATOR HARRY REID of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who is retiring this year, to rally his party into limiting filibusters against nominees in response to Republican delaying tactics. Mr. McConnell has said repeatedly that it is crucial to American democracy to respect the special rights of the minority party in the Senate, and that it would be a mistake to limit the filibuster, since the decision could backfire if his party fell out of power.”
KEEP ON SURVIVIN
|“Many Republicans are willing to bulldoze anything in their way to get what they want – but for [the filibuster] (and many other things), it’s not the ‘many Republicans’ who matter. It’s the few Republicans who may, or may not, be worried more about the long-term consequences of wrecking the institution than they are about some short-term political goal.” That’s Jonathan Bernstein with Bloomberg considering why the filibuster might survive in the Senate.
I'M DIFFERENT YA I'M DIFFERENT
|Marcia Coyle and Tony Mauro with The National Law Journal report on five potential Supreme Court nominees from DONALD TRUMP who could diversify the high court. Thirteen of Trump’s twenty possible nominees (his two lists of nominees total 21 but SENATOR MIKE LEE has said he isn’t interested) are white men, but five of them offer the possibility to add some “difference” to the bench.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The Washington Post writes that there’s still time for the Senate to confirm the nomination of JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. In fact, it most certainly won’t, and the Ed Board isn’t thrilled about it. “In addition to the personal injustice to Mr. Garland, the majority leader’s ploy wrought harm to basic norms of democratic accountability. Those should have dictated respect for the majority will, as expressed in the incumbency of Mr. Obama – not anticipatory deference to whatever might happen in November.”
TOP-ED
|According to Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times, CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS was saved by DONALD TRUMP’S victory, refraining from having to go where no chief justice has gone before in modern history: into the minority of his own court. But the election also means the chief has a choice to make; one Greenhouse thinks should be an easy one. “He needs to make it clear that the Roberts court is not a tool of partisan politics, that the Supreme Court has not turned irrevocably away from protecting civil rights, including the right to vote. Three years ago, he was the author of the 5-to-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on the ground that ‘things have changed dramatically’ and the protections of the law were no longer needed. That was a dubious sentiment in 2013. In 2016, it reads like an insult to reality.”
LET'S SEE HOW FAR WE'VE COME
|How long ago does 1952 seem? How far have we come on issues pertaining to gender roles? Senior ACLU staff attorney Scott Michelman considers the Supreme Court’s evolution on gender roles starting in the 1950’s all the way to Wednesday of this week – one day after DONALD TRUMP was elected president.
STOLEN DANCE
|Thursday night, SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY expressed concern and frustration over the empty Supreme Court seat, saying Senate Republicans stole the appointment “from one presidency…to deliver it to another.” He said, “The theft is under way. It’s not quite complete until the transition of power takes place.”
SWAY ME SMOOTH
|“Fourteen states had new voting or registration restrictions in place for the 2016 presidential election, raising concerns that minority voters in particular would have a harder time accessing the ballot box. Voting experts believe the laws had some effect on turnout this year, but said it would be difficult to measure against other factors.”
OTHER NEWS
Trump Could Pull Out of Global Climate Accord in a Year: Lawyers
Reuters“U.S. President-elect Donald Trump could use legal short-cuts to pull out of a global agreement for fighting climate change within a year, keeping a campaign promise and by-passing a theoretical four-year wait, lawyers say.”