Gorsuch Confirmation Hearings

[Guinevere]

Let Yertle the Turtle decide to change Senate rules from how the Founders made them

Gee, I must have a defective copy of the Constitution, because I can't find any reference to the Filibuster Rule in it...

Of course you can't, you don't have the super top-secret elite version given to liberal trial attorneys by the activist judges (aka non-elected legislators) of the US Supreme Court.

[Econoline]

[Big RR]

Guin, now I'm going to have to report you for a breach of security ethics.

she's only kidding folks--no such version exists, and even if it did, I would not be at liberty to confirm or deny its existence.

[Sue U]

Mum's the word.

[RayThom]

Chip... chip... chippin' away. Here come da judge. It's inevitable.
https://m.wsj.net/video/20170331/033117 ... ec664k.mp4

[Lord Jim]

I saw Schumer on Meet The Press yesterday...He sounded as out of touch with reality as the Kamikaze Caucus in the House...

His proposed "solution" if Gorsuch's nomination is successfully filibustered is essentially for the Senate GOP (rather than walk through the door that Senator Slime threw wide open) to come to him and let the Democrats pick the nominee...

Chuck must be licking toad...

But actually, because Schumer isn't really crazy, and he has to know that nothing remotely like that is ever going to happen, what's going on is that he's made the political calculation that it's more important to throw red meat to the Democratic base then it is to preserve the filibuster for possible use against a future nominee who is less impressive then Gorsuch, when he might be able to peel off a few Republican votes and actually block a nomination...

I think it's foolishly short-sighted, but clearly the base is driving the bus on this one...

Over a cliff....

[Guinevere]

You're wrong Jim. McConnell drove the bus over the cliff last summer.

https://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/stat ... reme-court

Now, the nomination of Judge Gorsuch. I said weeks ago that I was approaching this nomination with an open mind. My votes on Supreme Court nominations have never been about reflexive partisanship. I have evaluated every nominee on the merits – and I have voted to confirm six Supreme Court nominees of Republican presidents. Unlike Committee Republicans’ treatment of Chief Judge Merrick Garland, I take my constitutional duty to independently evaluate a president’s Supreme Court nominees seriously. That includes Judge Gorsuch.

For those of us who hoped that Judge Gorsuch would use his confirmation hearings to give insight into the type of Justice he would be, we were certainly disappointed. Based on his record, I had concerns about his views and whether he would bring a partisan agenda to the court. Judge Gorsuch did nothing to allay those fears. He in fact solidified them.

I cannot recall a nominee refusing to answer such basic questions about the principles underlying our Constitution, and about how he interprets those principles. These are fundamental questions that we should ask every nominee seeking a lifetime appointment to our highest court. Some of the questions that I asked him were not intended to be difficult. Several could have been answered by any first-year law student, with ease. Yet, unless we were asking about fishing or basketball, Judge Gorsuch stonewalled and avoided any substantive response. He was excruciatingly evasive. His sworn testimony and his approach to complying with this Committee’s historic role in the confirmation process have been patronizing. That is a disservice to the American people. And it is a blight on this confirmation process.

Judge Gorsuch claimed that he did not want to prejudge potential cases. That is a valid concern, but only within reason. It should not be used to evade questions on long-settled precedent or on the meaning and purpose of constitutional provisions. Judge Gorsuch would not even state whether he agreed with certain landmark Supreme Court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. He refused to say whether he believes that the Equal Protection Clause applies to women. He refused to say whether the framers of the First Amendment believed it permitted the use of a religious litmus test. He refused to provide information regarding his selection by extreme special interest groups and a billionaire businessman. And he even refused to confirm whether he would continue to recuse himself from matters involving that billionaire -- as he has done on the Tenth Circuit -- even if presented with the exact same facts.

I hoped that Judge Gorsuch would be more transparent and forthcoming in written questions – after given time to carefully consider the questions away from the lights and cameras. But he again declined. He refused to expressly acknowledge that Congress has war powers, even though every high school student knows that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. He again misstated the holding of Citizens United in an attempt to evade my question about Congress’s ability to enact campaign finance legislation. He provided no answer at all to questions regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County to gut the Voting Rights Act, and about women’s rights to obtain contraception. And he again refused to answer whether the First Amendment prohibits the President from imposing a religious litmus test, even when the Trump administration has adamantly claimed such a litmus test is not at issue with his travel ban.

Judge Gorsuch’s nonresponsive testimony makes it difficult for this Committee to fulfill its constitutional duty to examine his judicial philosophy and evaluate his nomination. Perhaps we should not be surprised that a nominee would not respect the role of this Committee after Senate Republicans let rank partisanship blind them from their constitutional duty to consider Chief Judge Merrick Garland. They did not afford Chief Judge Merrick Garland the courtesy of a hearing. Some even refused to meet with him. What a shameful stain on the proud history of this Committee.

The lesson Judge Gorsuch may have learned from Senate Republicans’ treatment of Merrick Garland is that this Committee is nothing more than a partisan rubberstamp. Judge Gorsuch appears to believe that since Republicans are in the majority he need not answer questions and is entitled to confirmation. The Majority Leader appears to believe that too.

Previous nominees respected this Committee’s constitutional role by answering questions in a substantive way – not with platitudes and aphorisms. One law professor wrote in the Atlantic that Judge Gorsuch “was by turns condescending, evasive, and even dishonest. In fact, it’s not too much to say that he, in his aw-shucks gentlemanly way, gaslighted the committee in a genteel but nonetheless Trumpian style.”

That description befits a nominee who the White House Chief of Staff stated “has the vision of Donald Trump.” Judge Gorsuch did not do nearly enough to prove Mr. Priebus wrong. In fact, he said that marriage equality is settled law but refused to say the same thing about a woman’s right to choose. That is telling considering it is the same position taken by President Trump, who promised time and again to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

When pressed on this issue, Judge Gorsuch claimed that his personal views did not matter, and he refused to discuss them. As the article by Garrett Epps in the Atlantic put it, Judge Gorsuch implied that the role of a judge is “a job which calls, apparently, for neither values nor any firm connection to human life as it is lived.” I ask that the article, titled “The Fundamental Dishonesty of the Gorsuch Hearings,” be included in the Record. The American people know better. We know that court decisions, especially Supreme Court decisions, are not simply detached applications of neutral principles. If they were, all judges would always reach the same results for the same reasons. They do not. Legal decisions are not mechanical. They are matters of interpretation and, often, matters of justice. One Supreme Court justice said more than a century ago: “When we take our seats on the bench we are not struck with blindness, and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men.”

Whether he will acknowledge it or not, Judge Gorsuch’s record says a lot about his judgment and his sense of justice. In a policy role at the Justice Department, he embraced broad and discredited assertions of executive power. As a judge, he twisted statutory language to limit the rights of workers, women, and children with disabilities; and he reached for broad constitutional questions that were not before him in order to advance his agenda. Judge Gorsuch complained about liberals relying on the courts to vindicate their constitutional rights, but he had no problem rubberstamping the far right’s social agenda when he ruled that employers could control their employees’ access to contraception.

When the far-right groups that vetted him look at that record, they like what they see. The leader of that vetting has said that the process was driven not by “Who’s a really smart lawyer who’s been really accomplished?” but by a search for someone “who understands these things like we do.” We know that these groups, and the millionaires who fund them, have a clear agenda – one that is anti-choice, anti-environment, and pro-corporate. These groups are confident that Judge Gorsuch shares their agenda. That should concern all of us.

I have thought a lot about this nominee, and whether I could somehow find a way to support him. When I reached the decision to support Chief Justice Roberts’ nomination, I did so knowing that he was conservative. But I also believed that his record as a judge at the time showed a commitment to restraint and minimalism. While many other Democratic Senators voted the other way, his record allowed me to take him at his word that he did not have an ideological agenda. I said then that “a vote to confirm requires faith that the words he spoke to us have meaning.”

Compared to Chief Justice Roberts, there is a yawning crevasse between the words Judge Gorsuch spoke to us, and his actual record. When viewed in isolation, perhaps those words would appear satisfactory. But when viewed in the context of his troubling tenure at the Justice Department, his unprecedented selection process by far-right interest groups, and his judicial record evidencing a partisan agenda, they are unconvincing.

These are extraordinary times, and this is an extraordinary nomination. Last year this Committee forever tarnished its reputation and 100 years of bipartisan tradition to do the Majority Leader and Donald Trump’s partisan bidding. Senate Republicans held a Supreme Court vacancy and an eminently qualified nominee hostage with the sole and express intent to deny President Obama an appointment to the Supreme Court. Since taking office, President Trump has focused his attention on targeting the very communities that are most at risk by his choice for the Supreme Court – a nominee who, the White House tells us, shares his agenda. This nominee has since refused to address any substantive issues during his testimony. He has left this Committee and the American people with only unresolved concerns. The Majority Leader is now promising to rush this nominee toward confirmation, depriving Senators of a full debate on the Senate floor. And the Majority Leader has promised to use whatever tactic is necessary to get his way – that Donald Trump’s nominee is confirmed, even if that means forever damaging the Senate.

I respect this institution as much as anyone. For over 42 years I have devoted myself to the good that it can accomplish. But I cannot vote solely to protect an institution when the rights of hardworking Americans are at risk. I fear the Senate I would be defending no longer exists. I have often said that the Senate, at its best, can be the conscience of the Nation. I must now vote my conscience, both today and later this week. My conscience will not allow me to ratify the Majority Leader’s actions – not last year and not this year. I will not support advancing this nomination.

[BoSoxGal]

The whole situation is brutally painful - what the GOP did in blocking Garland is like a political rape, and I do not make that analogy lightly.

But the Democrats are powerless to stop this nomination, and I don't see how the filibuster advances the agenda of winning future elections. The voters we most desperately need to win back to the party are voters who are likely least concerned about SCOTUS nominees and most concerned about bread & butter issues. I fear that this filibuster will only make the Democrats appear obstructionist on an equal level as the Republicans and further alienate the voters who are sick and tired of partisan bickering on Capitol Hill.

I loathe the fact that Gorsuch is stealing Garland's seat. It makes me sick to my stomach. I respect the righteous anger behind the urge to filibuster, but I just don't see what is gained pragmatically speaking.

[Long Run]

While it wasn't good government to stall Garland's nomination, the R's had the votes to block the nomination. And they had every legal right to do so (and, of course, having handy statements from leading D's saying that a last year nomination should not proceed was pretty handy to call B.S. on the very same D's). Now the D's don't have the votes to block the nomination of Gorsuch if the R's decide to eliminate the filibuster. The final end of the filibuster, as Jim pointed out, was teed up by Senator Slimeball. And Schumer is pretty much making certain of its demise. In both cases, this strategy has been for a short-term gain.

This is unfortunate since the best solution would be to return the filibuster to its original method, where it was used on rare occasions. Once they modified the rule to be that you only had to threaten a filibuster, and the Senate business could proceed as normal while the filibuster/cloture argument was going on, it was only a matter of time for the process to devolve to the current state of ridiculousness. However, the original concept of protecting minority rights on highly significant matters is worth preserving. Which is why it won't be preserved.

[Econoline]

That statement by Sen. Leahy was awesome, and thorough, and convincing. When Gorsuch was first nominated I started out willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I am now of the opinion that (a) Gorsuch has not shown that he deserves that benefit, and (b) the Democrats in the Senate must now do whatever they can to show their opposition to this appointment. The filibuster (unlike the GOP's year-long refusal to hold any hearings or debates at all) is a legitimate, established procedural tool that exists within the current Senate rules. It may be futile, but there is no way that anyone can assert that it has just now been invented by one party for a partisan, obstructionist purpose.




Besides, if the GOP eliminates the filibuster they will have limited their own power when the Democratic Party manages to take back the Senate....

[Guinevere]

Refusing to hold hearings on the president's nominee is so far outside the norm, and to mention it in the context of changing rules gives it a legitimacy it does not deserve. Voting someone down and refusing to even do your constitutionally required job, are entirely different matters as well. McConnell should have been impeached. Or at least a serious effort made (clearly the votes were not there).

When Reid "went nuclear" I said I'd live and die by the sword, and so I will. Bring. It. On. The fight continues, and I'm glad the Dems remain is a combative mode. They need to start that way, for the long term. Being reasonable only leaves us with tire treads all over our backs.

PS - the Senator slimeball epithet is just more evidence of the lack of respect in both parties. There is no one slimier and more hypocritical than Yertle McTurtle.

[Guinevere]

PPS - watch the committee vote today. There was no one more loathsome, partisan, and untruthful than Lyin'Ted Cruz. I felt like I needed a shower and disinfectant after watching him. Gross.

[Econoline]

Also too...(credit: Charlie Pierce)

• Nevertheless, I'd like some smart pundit to explain this to me: We hear endlessly that confirming Gorsuch would restore "balance" to the Court because young Gorsuch would be filling the seat once held by Antonin Scalia. (This, it should be noted, is a tacit admission that Gorsuch has been nominated because he's a fairly reliable conservative.) Someone will have to explain to me the value of this "balance." The previous "balanced" court gave us Citizens United and Shelby County. Why would any Democratic senator vote to restore that kind of " balance"? And, for you historians at home, most of whom have grown up under a de facto conservative majority Court, there hasn't been an equally clear liberal majority since the Ford administration. Suddenly, Gorsuch needs to be on the express train to glory because…balance? I find this not very compelling at all.

[rubato]

Refusing to hold hearings on the president's nominee is so far outside the norm, and to mention it in the context of changing rules gives it a legitimacy it does not deserve. Voting someone down and refusing to even do your constitutionally required job, are entirely different matters as well. McConnell should have been impeached. Or at least a serious effort made (clearly the votes were not there).

When Reid "went nuclear" I said I'd live and die by the sword, and so I will. Bring. It. On. The fight continues, and I'm glad the Dems remain is a combative mode. They need to start that way, for the long term. Being reasonable only leaves us with tire treads all over our backs.

PS - the Senator slimeball epithet is just more evidence of the lack of respect in both parties. There is no one slimier and more hypocritical than Yertle McTurtle.

Please don't slander turtles. Turtles are nice. He looks more like a lizard. A repulsive one like a Komodo dragon.

[Lord Jim]

the Senator slimeball epithet is just more evidence of the lack of respect in both parties.

Perhaps, but the erstwhile Senator Slime deserves it:

Harry Reid lied about Mitt Romney’s taxes. He’s still not sorry.



By Chris Cillizza September 15, 2016

One of the strangest incidents of the 2012 presidential campaign was when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid accused then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney of having not paid any taxes over the past decade. That Reid made that allegation from the floor of the Senate [where by law he couldn't be sued for libel or slander] made it even odder.

The problem with Reid's allegation? It's just not true. We know that, at least in 2011 and 2010, Romney did pay taxes. How do we know that? Because Romney released his tax returns for those years. In 2011, Romney paid $1.9 million in taxes; in 2010, he paid slightly more than $3 million in taxes.

Our own Fact Checker gave Reid Four Pinocchios for his "no taxes" claim. PolitiFact gave the claim a "Pants on Fire" rating.

Yet Reid (D-Nev.) not only refuses to retract the allegation but also seems to take great pride in it. When pressed by CNN's Dana Bash last year about continuing to defend a statement that is not true, Reid responded, "Romney didn't win, did he?"[My, how very Trumpian of him]

Now, in a new interview with WaPo's Ben Terris, Reid echoes those sentiments. Here's Reid's full response to Ben's question about the Romney attack:

People bring that up, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Why? Because I knew what he had done was not be transparent and forthright about his taxes and to this day he hasn’t released his tax returns.

… Did I want to do that? No. I had the information, I tried to get somebody else to do it. I tried to get somebody in the Obama 'reelect,' I tried to get one of the senators, I tried to get one of the outside groups, but nobody would do it. So I did it.[So, unable to get anyone else to spread this smear and lie, Harry stepped up and did it himself...he's the nastiest Mormon I've ever heard of...] And with that, like everything, I think in life, here’s something I learned from my father, if you’re going to do something, don’t do it half-assed, don’t play around. With the Mitt Romney stuff, I didn’t play around. ...

Again, to be clear, Reid is just wrong. Romney didn't release all 10 years of his tax returns but the returns he did release showed that he paid taxes. If a small part of an allegation is accurate but the main thrust of it isn't, that doesn't make the whole thing true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... not-sorry/

Harry Reid should have been Censured by the United States Senate for this, (just as Joe McCarthy was, when he engaged in his dishonest smears hiding behind the laws that protected him from being sued for libel or slander for anything he said on the floor of the Senate)

He should have had to slink away from the Senate in ignominy and disgrace...

But instead, Senator Slime got a fond send off and retirement party...

There was no one more loathsome, partisan, and untruthful than Lyin'Ted Cruz.

I agree that Cruz is reprehensible...(I've said so on numerous occasions)

His capacity for cynical, self-interested political calculation knows no bounds...

But interestingly, when I've referred to Cruz as "Tail Gunner Ted" (speaking of Joe McCarthy...) which I have done a number of times, nobody 'round these parts accused me of using an " epithet that is just more evidence of the lack of respect in both parties"...

Funny that...

[Guinevere]

Perhaps I've gotten more sensitive to the epithets these days.

With a few exceptions, the whole mess of them should be kicked out and we should start over again. Dems pick 10, Republicans pick 10, and the rest get put out to pasture.

Or we could just go "designated survivor" on the entire lot. So discouraging. And I'm a girl that loves her politics and loves her Washington DC world. You know it's bad if I'm this frustrated.

[Lord Jim]

You're wrong Jim. McConnell drove the bus over the cliff last summer.

Yeah, well, about that...


Personally, I believe Merrick Garland should have gotten a hearing...

But that having been said, it's much better political strategy to look ahead to the next fight, rather than obsessing over the last one...

What I've read indicates Schumer himself didn't want this fight...he understands the logic in play here...

But he (and other Senate Democrats) have been driven to acting like the Freedom "Saviors Of Obamacare" Caucus by the Democratic base...

I understand the anger over Garland...

And if the Democrats had won a majority in the Senate in the last election, and therefore could actually prevail, this "payback's a bitch" strategy might have some merit...

But what they're doing now essentially amounts to, "You punched me in the nose, so now I'm going to punch myself in the nose...And not only that, I'll make it easier for you to punch me in the nose the next time, and any time after that you want too...that'll show you..."

I find it amusing the way they're now trying to cherry pick and back fill to find something in Gorsuch's 2700 rulings, votes, and opinions as a judge that will portray him as "out of the mainstream"...

So they can try to avoid making this look like it's all a hopeless attempt to get payback for Garland...

But everybody knows that's what it really is...

And "hopeless" is the way to describe it...

Not one Republican Senator...

Not Susan Collins, not John McCain, not nobody... (I certainly wouldn't if I were a GOP member of the Senate) will refuse to go with the "Nuclear Option" with the Dems attempting to block Neil Gorsuch...

They might be able to get some GOP votes on this with some subsequent nominee, but that option will now be forever lost to them...

[Guinevere]

Never say never.

In politics you have to play both the long game and the short. Believe me, in all the comments I've read about the filibuster on social media (and I've read way way too many), most people don't have a clue the Dems are the ones who released the hounds in 2013. And that's how the narrative will play out in 2017/2018. The Rs went nuclear and destroyed the filibuster because their nominee couldn't get enough votes to get past cloture. It's a calculated risk, one that play well right now, and will next year too. Not using the filibuster is the same as losing it. The idea that you're going to peel off a couple of Republicans on a SCOTUS nomination is a long long long shot. AND we need the base fired up and energized to vote in 2018. Plus we need to win back the Fucking Bernie Bro millennials. No action would not get over well with either of those groups.

I'll take the odds Schumer is playing right now, thanks much.

[Lord Jim]

I'm a girl that loves her politics and loves her Washington DC world.

I feel your pain...

I grew up in the shadow of the nation's capitol, deeply steeped in politics from a very early age...

I went to school with the kids of Congressmen and Senators, I worked in politics, I worked on The Hill...

I've posted about his numerous times; the loss of basic civility in our political discourse (which has been ramped up and exploited to even higher levels by Trump) has done enormous damage to the health of our Republic...

[BoSoxGal]

A little levity:

GRAND LARCENY JUNCTION, COLORADO — Former Supreme Court Appointee Merrick Garland has reportedly sent Judge Neil Gorsuch an Edible Arrangement and card, congratulating Mr. Gorsuch on being filibustered by Senate Democrats, instead of being confirmed to the high court. Gorsuch was the first nomination of Co-President Donald J. Trump, after Judge Garland’s nomination was blocked for nearly an entire year by Senate Republicans, who currently hold a slim majority in the legislative body.

“Dear Neil,” Garland’s letter begins, “just wanted to drop a line and congratulate you on being filibustered! What a tremendous honor to be so very close to achieving what I know must be one of your biggest life and career goals — being rammed down the American peoples’ throats by the Republican Party and a delusional, conspiracy theory peddling pyschopath of a president!”

Mr. Garland had been nominated to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the bench by Obama, but Senate Republicans said multiple times they wouldn’t even schedule a single hearing for his confirmation. They made good on that promise, and last year Trump pulled the greatest upset in American political history, becoming the first orange-tinted president since James K. “Tangerine” Polk. Democrats in the Senate have pointed to Garland’s treatment, as well as some opinions Gorsuch wrote as a district court judge in Colorado they say showed a bias toward corporate America and against women and disabled people, as justification for their filibuster.

“Hey, at first glance it might be insulting that you are being filibustered,” Garland wrote to Gorsuch, “but take it as a compliment! I don’t even know what it’s like to even be filibustered, so you’ve beaten me twice already, it would appear.”

According to sources close to Gorsuch, the Edible Arrangement Garland sent contained several items. Among them was a 64-ounce bag of gummy penises. Garland’s letter explained the candies in the post-script.

“P.S.,” Garland wrote, “you’ll also notice a scrumptious bag of dicks. I’m pretty sure you know what to do with them. I just wanted to let you know I chipped-in with Barack, Joe Biden, and about 130 million people who elected Obama twice thinking he’d get to pick the Supreme Court Justice replacements as long as he was in office. They apparently didn’t take kindly to having that pick stolen from them so you could achieve your dream. Enjoy!”

The White House declined to comment.