dagblog - Comments for "No Senate quorum before 2019!"

"Brett Kavanaugh Once Argued

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 17:37:52 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

edit to add: relocated to "There's So Much You Don't Know About Brett Kavanaugh", artappraiser, as that thread has other comments specific to Kavanaugh

Great roundup as part of @

artappraiser — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 01:25:26 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

Great roundup as part of July 4 "Playbook" @ Politico by Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer & Daniel Lippmann:

SUPREME COURT REPORT …

-- ANDREW RESTUCCIA with PRESIDENT TRUMP last night in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia: “‘I think you’re going to be very impressed,’ Trump said during a dinner for U.S. troops at The Greenbrier resort here. He praised Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, his first pick for the high court, adding, ‘We hit a home run there and we’re going to hit a home run here.’ Trump interviewed three candidates for the job on Tuesday, bringing the total number of candidates he has interviewed to seven, according to the White House.” https://politi.co/2KIQhgU

-- KAVANAUGH IS THE LEADING CANDIDATE, PER NYT’S ADAM LIPTAK: “[A]ccording to a person close to the president, Judge Kavanaugh, who has served 12 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is the leading candidate in the president’s mind, followed by Judge [Amy Coney] Barrett and then Judge [Raymond] Kethledge. Mr. Trump believes Judge Kavanaugh has been on the bench long enough to give the president a sense of where he stands on various issues and that Judge Barrett is fairly young and could use more judicial experience. The administration might want to keep her in reserve should Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, leave the court.” https://nyti.ms/2IT3AGD

-- WAPO’S BOB COSTA and JOSH DAWSEY: “Leading contender to be Trump’s Supreme Court pick faces questions from social conservatives”: “An intensifying debate over Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a front-runner in President Trump’s search for a Supreme Court nominee, gripped Republicans on Tuesday, with conservative critics highlighting past rulings and his links to GOP leaders while his allies — including inside the White House — forcefully defended him.

“The sparring over Kavanaugh, one of four federal appeals court judges who met with the president Monday, underscored the challenges facing Trump as he aims to pick a successor to retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy by his own July 9 deadline.

“Even as Trump mulls a shortlist that has been carefully cultivated by influential Republican lawyers, frictions in the conservative legal community and on Capitol Hill threaten to disrupt the search process. The political moment for Trump was fragile as a president devoted to his base weighed what a Kavanaugh selection could mean for him, unfolding amid a flurry of op-eds and phone calls praising the 53-year-old judge as well as a clamor from those who see him as out of step on health care and abortion, or too tied to George W. Bush’s White House.

“‘You hear the rumbling because if you’ve been part of the establishment for a long time, you’re suspect,’ veteran conservative organizer Richard Viguerie said in an interview. ‘Kavanaugh carries that baggage.’” https://wapo.st/2MMuVwB

-- AP’s Catherine Lucey, Ken Thomas and Lisa Mascaro: “As Trump weighs his options, he has heard from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has expressed reservations about one top potential nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the call but not authorized to publicly disclose details of it.” http://bit.ly/2NqHrmv

-- @maggieNYT: “COTTON spoke with Trump earlier [Tuesday] and suggested there might be better jurists than Kavanaugh from a legal standpoint, per person briefed on call”.

-- @costareports: “End of day tidbits from inside GOP... -Spence Abraham a key Kethledge backer -Rick Santorum making calls to boost Hardiman -Bill Bennett talking up Judge Allison Eid -McConnell World still pushing Thapar -Jim Bopp sent Trump a letter w/ concerns about Kav.”

DETROIT NEWS: “Michigan’s Kethledge on Trump’s short list for Supreme Court” https://detne.ws/2IRJe0o

JEN HABERKORN: “New Supreme Court justice could weigh in on abortion quickly” https://politi.co/2KEXrTo

It does sorta seem like the

jollyroger — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 19:10:38 +0000

In reply to Skocpol makes very good

It does sorta seem like the particular atrocities of the day will be fought out at the Supreme Court before any other fora rouse themselves to action.

OTOH, one may perhaps invest a court decision adverse to Trump with too much hope of potency.

It, is, after all, only a supermajority empowered Senate that can actually deliver any effective check, in the end.

Thanks for pointing that out.

artappraiser — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 17:38:05 +0000

In reply to Skocpol makes very good

Thanks for pointing that out.

Skocpol makes very good

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 16:27:27 +0000

In reply to Thanks for sharing that. I

Skocpol makes very good points. But at this point I think I agree with Josh on this.

Maybe I'm just behind on the latest declarations of intentions by senators. But it's unclear to me why there seems to be a belief that the Republicans will get their first choice through (their only chance prior to the election). Is it beyond reach to believe that, with no McCain vote, there is at this point a possibility of a Collins (and maybe a Murkowski as well) no vote with Democrats able to hold their members defeating the nomination?

Agreed that if the dominant framing is that this is a vote on abortion, and the nomination is defeated it very possibly could tip close Senate elections against Democrats. But this nomination is about abortion and many other critical matters as well. That really needs to come through during the debate.

Skocpol wrote:

The Dems must take at least the House and some state legislatures and Governorships this fall, and if they do not, the country not just the Court is lost, because of voter suppressions that will happen thereafter.

I wish Skocpol had addressed the argument Josh makes about SCOTUS very possibly ending up ruling on Trump's fate, and about how that really presents a constitutional crisis. I agree. I think he's right about that. I am left to wonder if Skocpol agrees or not.

Dems could win the House, lose the Senate, and pick up some state legislatures and Governorships, which Skocpol seems to think are the critical things that need to happen to save the country. But if SCOTUS rules to permit Trump's assault on presidential accountability to the rule of law to stand, and likely rules in other ways as well which exacerbate or lock in the Republicans' ability to continue destroying our country, isn't that something much closer to the country being lost?

The battle has begun:

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 23:06:37 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

The battle has begun:

The first nominee on Trump's shortlist that Dems are going after by name -->> https://t.co/iYdm1RZRxl
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) July 2, 2018

.@SenBillNelson: "If, as President Trump has suggested, he's going to have a litmus test — and he said said this over and over — on Roe vs. Wade, then I'm not going to be voting for some justice who's going to overturn Roe vs. Wade" https://t.co/m54EW940yh
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) July 2, 2018

Also interesting how Democrats are borrowing the “no activist judges” line for themselves now https://t.co/OzjQe000KP
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) July 2, 2018

Actually found helpful,

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 22:34:45 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

Actually found helpful, even though from a conservative law prof.:

My piece in the @weeklystandard about how to think about the impact of Kennedy's replacement on the Supreme Court. https://t.co/mwuX0Gt9AZ
— Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith) July 2, 2018

Excerpt

[....] The impact of Kennedy’s replacement will also depend on what type of conservative he or she is. Some judicial conservatives are originalists, others are inclined to libertarianism, and others emphasize judicial restraint. These philosophies combine in different ways to cut in different directions in different contexts—which is why conservatives don’t always vote as a bloc. Even originalism can lead to different outcomes, as we saw this term when the conservative justices splintered on three important questions of structural constitutional law that turned in part on analysis of originalist sources [....]

John Roberts Will Probably Be

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 21:52:00 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

John Roberts Will Probably Be The Supreme Court’s Next Swing Justice

By Ritchie King, Oliver Roeder and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux @ FiveThirtyEight.com, June 27

extensive article with graphs, showing results of new median on the court's liberal-conservative spectrum based on much of Trump's shortlist being "to the right of Roberts".

Note that they still have Clarence Thomas to the right of all candidates, and put a single candidate, Thomas Hardiman, to the left of John Roberts, but still to the right of Kennedy.

Related segment from Axios

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 04:23:57 +0000

In reply to No Senate quorum before 2019!

Related segment from Axios.com's "Sneak Peek" by J. Swan, July 1:

4. Inside the Democratic strategy to oppose Trump's judge

Democrats plan to make health care the central issue in their fight to oppose whomever Trump picks to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

Here's Democratic leader Chuck Schumer framing the strategy on the Senate floor Wednesday: "This is the most important Supreme Court vacancy for this country in at least a generation. Nothing less than the fate of our health care system...[is] at stake."

Democrats plan to keep hammering two arguments:

That Kennedy's replacement will tip the court into deep social conservatism and will ultimately lead to abortion becoming illegal in America.

That Kennedy's replacement will ultimately vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act, removing protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Why this matters: Democrats believe these arguments will resonate with voters whom polls show are already worried about their health care under Republican leadership. Democrats also think they'll resonate with the swing vote senators needed to confirm Kennedy's replacement — many of whom support abortion rights and voted against Trump's efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

"Republicans had hoped they put a band aid on the self-inflicted wounds that came from health care repeal and gutting protections for people with pre-existing conditions," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson told me.

"Then, Donald Trump ripped the band-aide off with his lawsuit to overturn those protections and now the fight over his Supreme Court Justice will pick the scab."

Go deeper: [.....]

More on "the lie," he can

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 01:30:28 +0000

In reply to Picked up a copy yesterday of

More on "the lie," he can easily lie on this one because the list he is using has already been vetted for that:

They’re all against abortion - they’ve been screened by the Federalist Society - making this point moot. https://t.co/U6ICiggz8k
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 1, 2018