TRUMP TRIUMPHS | The GOP Hat Trick Takes The Cake | Here’s Lookin’ At You SCOTUS
November 9, 2016
HISTORY MADE
|The deed is done. DONALD J. TRUMP has been elected the 45th president of the United States of America. History was made yesterday; herstory not so much.
THAT'S ALL SHE WROTE
|Earlier this morning, HILLARY CLINTON gave her concession speech in which she spoke directly to the little girls of America and said, “Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every change and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”
HAT TRICK
|Congress will remain comfortably red in the near future, with Republicans gripping a firm hold on the House and Senate. Among the GOP winners was SENATOR CHUCK GRASSLEY, who coasted to reelection despite hopes from Democrats that his association with the blockade against JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND would keep him from winning.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|To understand yesterday’s election results requires a new understanding of voting rights in this country. The Editorial Board of The New York Times says voters were abandoned by the Supreme Court which created a world where private citizens now have to sue to defend their right to vote. “On Tuesday, for the first time in more than 50 years, Americans went to the polls to elect a president without a fully functioning Voting Rights Act – thanks to an insidious decision by the Supreme Court in 2013.”
WHEN LESS ISN'T MORE
|There were 868 fewer places to vote yesterday, with counties all over the country cutting back the number of polling places. Ari Berman for The Nation writes the Voting Rights Act blocked 3,000 discriminatory voting changes from 1965 to 2013, but that all changed with Shelby County v. Holder – a ruling that “gutted” the VRA.
WHAT WENT UNTOLD
|Ari Berman also delivered to us a poignant moment, tweeting yesterday was the first presidential election in 50 years that occurred without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.
NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT POWER
|Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports a victory for DONALD TRUMP has “enormous consequences” for the Supreme Court. He’s calling it “the political earthquake that hit Tuesday night,” noting Trump’s victorious day swallowed up MERRICK GARLAND’S nomination and any hope for a liberal court. And so now, with Donald Trump in the White House, the stage is set for a presidential legacy that will live on at the Supreme Court for a generation.
GAMBLING MAN
|The Republicans took a big, big gamble on their SCOTUS strategy earlier this year, and today they’re reaping the rewards. Mark Anderson with The Wall Street Journal reports on the power and potential in DONALD TRUMP shaping the United States Supreme Court.
DREAMS DASHED
|“DONALD TRUMP’S upset presidential election victory puts an end to dreams of a liberal U.S. Supreme Court – at least for four years and perhaps a generation.” That’s Greg Stohr with Bloomberg reporting.
TWEET DU JOUR
|Brent Kendall, @brkend — “SCOTUS in 1 tweet: No Garland. Probably no Senate filibuster of DJT noms. The Chief & Kennedy as powerful as ever. Libs pray for RBG health.”
WHAT'S NEXT
|CNN’s Ariane de Vogue considers what DONALD TRUMP will do next with the Supreme Court, who’s on his list of nominees, and what he envisions a conservative court to look like. CNN contributor and professor of law STEVE VLADECK noted, “The real question to which we may now find the answer is just how serious Mr. Trump was about replacing JUSTICE SCALIA with a judge cut from the same cloth, and how much pressure he’ll receive from Republicans in the Senate to stick to his original list.”