WHAT SCOTUS WAS INTENDED TO BE…A COURT OF NINE | Maverick, This is Not a Good Idea | Debate Prep For Tomorrow
October 18, 2016
A COURT OF NINE
|Yesterday, speaking at the University of Minnesota, JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR spoke to the role of the Supreme Court and the enormous loss of JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA that still weighs heavy as his seat remains empty. She said, “It’s much more difficult for us to do our job if we are not what we’re intended to be — a court of nine.”
NO. NO, MAV, THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA
|Monday there was more madness from The Hill with former Republican presidential nominee SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN vowing Republicans in the Senate will continue to block any and all Supreme Court nominees if HILLARY CLINTON is elected. “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.” What happened to the argument that it’s the next president who should be the one to fill JUSTICE SCALIA’S empty seat? McCain, as Nina Totenberg points out, seems to have upped the ante.
WALKING BACKWARDS
|No surprise here…It didn’t take long for SENATOR MCCAIN to walk back his comments yesterday. A spokeswoman for the Arizona senator: “Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”
IMMA COMPEL HIM TO INCLUDE WOMEN IN THE SEQUEL
|Our friend Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reflects on the first oral argument of OT16 noting it “delivered something so rare as to be practically nonexistent: gender equality.” Debating a double jeopardy case, there were just as many women at the lectern as there were men. Barnes: “If that seems unremarkable, spend some time at the Marble Palace.”
IMAGINE A WORLD
|“Where SCALIA’S seat — and two others — remain vacant for five years because a Republican Senate refuses to confirm anyone named by the president. Then imagine that all three of these seats are filled five or nine or thirteen years from today, when Republicans finally manage to gain control of both the White House and the Senate. What reason would Democratic governors have to obey the decisions of such a court.” That’s Ian Millhiser, a legal writer at the Center for American Progress, whose voice was the loudest yesterday in condemning SENATOR MCCAIN’S controversial comments. In The Washington Post, David Weigel reports.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
|Because tomorrow the Supreme Court gets its day in the sun. Tomorrow night, DONALD TRUMP and HILLARY CLINTON will face off in their third debate and will have to discuss their visions for the future of the Supreme Court. The stakes for SCOTUS have never been higher, my friends.
WHAT TO EXPECT
|Or rather, what to hope for. Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr delivers a list of the most pressing questions the candidates need to answer tomorrow night about the Surpeme Court. He wants everything from Citizens United to the Second Amendment to be addressed. A standout on his list is a pointed question aimed at HRC about JUDGE GARLAND’S nomination. Here’s hoping!
OTHER NEWS
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Whatcom County killer's death-penalty appeal
The Associated PressYesterday, SCOTUS declined to hear a death penalty case coming from the state of Washington. The decision drew sharp dissent from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which they were highly critical of the WA Supreme Court’s rationale for upholding the death sentence in light of evidence that the defendant had brain damage.
John McCain just did what his best friend in the Senate warned Republicans not to do
VoxIn March, Senator Lindsey Graham told David Axelrod that the one thing he tells his fellow Republicans is to watch what they say about the Supreme Court. What’s more, he told Axelrod, “If she wins the people have spoken she chooses someone liberal — which she will — who is qualified — which I am certain they will be — I am going to vote for them.”
Who Will Be the First Openly LGBT Supreme Court Justice
VICE“What LGBT legal eagle will become enshrined as an instant American icon, alongside Justices like Louis Brandeis, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor? Is the first openly LGBT justice already in public life? ‘Absolutely,’ said Sam Erman, a law professor at the University of Southern California.”