THE SENATE’S BROKEN CONFIRMATION PROCESS
Published in
4 min readApr 1, 2019
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- The Court Mitch McConnell Built (6/29/19): “You can bet that [Rucho] will not be the last end-of-term 5-to-4 vote in a politically charged Supreme Court decision” as “Mitch McConnell created the current court to deliver just that type of outcome.” “The party label of the president who made the nomination is becoming a dependable indicator of how a Supreme Court justice will rule.” In response, Democratic Presidential candidates have called for reforms to the Court to offset its conservative bloc. But even if Democrats win the White House, “Mr. McConnell will not easily relinquish control over the court he was so instrumental in shaping.”
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- Mitch McConnell Haunts Democratic Debates (Politico — 6/27/19): “The majority leader loomed large over [the] first Democratic primary debate in Miami.” Yet, “on several occasions, contenders struggled to articulate a coherent strategy on how they would deal with McConnell if they were to win the presidency and he was still majority leader.” Democrats on Capitol Hill, such as Sheldon Whitehouse, have since criticized the candidates, arguing that Democrats’ focus must not only narrowly include winning back the White House, but also the Senate in 2020.
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- Why Mitch McConnell Doesn’t Care If You Think He’s a Hypocrite: In a recent speech Mitch McConnell explains his theory of change — focusing on judges and the judiciary. “What can’t be undone is a lifetime appointment to a young man or woman who believes in the quaint notion that the job of the judge is to follow the law.”
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- Leonard Leo Flip-Flops on Trump Filling a Supreme Court Seat in 2020: “McConnell and Leo are intent on putting right-wing ideologues into lifetime federal court seats, regardless of their rhetoric around it. But at a minimum, in the event that a Supreme Court seat opens up in 2020, they can both now argue that filling it is, somehow, a matter of principle.”
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- Supreme Court Hearings are Broken, Both Parties Say. Here’s How They Can be Fixed. Senators of both parties complain that Supreme Court hearings today yield little useful information, with nominees wary of saying anything that might look like prejudging a case. But experts cite past examples that could foster greater insight — and greater civility
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- How the Republicans Broke the Senate in Confirming Kavanaugh: “Republicans executed a brute power play. A letter from one woman about an awful event more than 35 years ago was nothing against a decades-long, well-funded effort to remake the federal judiciary. As they executed this particular play, Republicans went a step further and shoved aside all pretense that the Senate is a representative, competent decision-making body. Destroy the process, threaten anyone who stands in the way, gaslight your opponents if possible — the will to power was unrelenting.”
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- Fixing the Broken Supreme Court Nomination Process: What would it take to expose and fix the inequalities that plague the current nomination process to our nation’s highest court?
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- Senate Republicans Steamroll Judicial Process: ‘Advice’ dwindles in the GOP’s rush for judges.
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- Departure From the Judicial Confirmation Process: With five actions, the White House and Senate majority have broken the process to confirm many nominees to lifetime positions.
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- How to End the Judicial Confirmation Wars: It would be better to openly acknowledge the truth of the matter. The court is the site of power plays, because the court is powerful. It seems nothing short of preposterous to believe that certain “norms” of comity and deference to the executive will hold up under these conditions.
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