merrick-garland

Lindsey Graham Stonewalls Merrick Garland’s Confirmation Hearing, & Upcoming Team Justice

In an appalling bit of Republican obstruction, Lindsey Graham (who at the moment remains the leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee) is refusing to set a date for the confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, President Biden’s nominee for Attorney General. Graham’s action is transparently in retaliation for the impeachment of Donald Trump. Indeed, Graham himself connects the two in a statement he released, saying, in part, “government requires trade-offs.”

What can We The People do to try to fix what politicians have broken in our government and our country? This video discusses two of the Team Justice projects that are designed to encourage and inspire full citizen participation in all aspects of government.

Let’s Ditch Mitch

The Senate majority leader comes out of his shell.

Mitch, on the other hand, has a longstanding alliance with the National Rifle Association, which has shown its affection to the tune of about $1.3 million in support. Anything the N.R.A. dislikes never gets the chance to come up for a Senate vote. Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is moldering away in a corner because the N.R.A. doesn’t want authorities taking guns away from domestic abusers.

It’s been another terrible year of mass shooting violence. One simple, very popular response would be to improve the background checks for gun purchases. It would at least show our elected officials care about the crisis.

Such a bill passed the House of Representatives and went to the Senate where it’s, um, lying around somewhere. “There’s a whole bunch of Republican support, but he won’t let it move to the floor,” said minority leader Chuck Schumer.

This goes on a lot. McConnell, who has near total control over what comes up for a vote, sits on things he doesn’t like until they smother. Farewell, immigration reform, Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions, lowering prescription drug prices, protecting election security, restoring net neutrality.

You can, of course, just presume that McConnell is following Trump’s orders. But it’s hard to believe the president even knows what’s going on. This week, when he was in Europe, Trump twittered congratulations to the House on the passage of a huge disaster aid package, adding, “Great, now we will get it done in the Senate!” Helpful readers noted that the Senate had approved said bill two weeks before.

There are well over 100 House-passed bills sitting around gathering mildew in Mitch’s limbo. What do you think that place looks like? A very depressing bus station waiting room? A hospital ward packed with comatose patients? Or maybe just a dimly lit storage bin where little bills sit around drinking juice and playing video games until the end of time?

All of them in the thrall of Mitch McConnell. Before we move on, can we mention that McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, is the nation’s secretary of transportation, and possibly on her way to serious contention for Worst Cabinet Member?

Check out the Times story by Michael Forsythe and Eric Lipton that detailed how Chao, during the performance of her duties promoting the American maritime industry, has also been lending a helping hand to her own family’s very extensive shipping business, which builds most of its fleet in China. Her family has made more than $1 million in campaign contributions to the senator. Which is generous, but not quite as impressive as the somewhere between $5 million and $25 million that Chao’s father has given his daughter and son-in-law as a flat-out gift.

So McConnell has been doing very well indeed — family money, Senate majority and no irritating votes on stuff he doesn’t like. To be fair, he’s not the first leader who’s pulled that disappearing bill trick. (Possibly the first who enjoys referring to himself as “The Grim Reaper,” but that’s just part of his colorful personality.) His predecessor, Democrat Harry Reid, did the same thing, although Schumer claims not nearly so much. “There was not a total blanket on anything coming to the floor,” Schumer said in a phone interview. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

So McConnell has been doing very well indeed — family money, Senate majority and no irritating votes on stuff he doesn’t like. To be fair, he’s not the first leader who’s pulled that disappearing bill trick. (Possibly the first who enjoys referring to himself as “The Grim Reaper,” but that’s just part of his colorful personality.) His predecessor, Democrat Harry Reid, did the same thing, although Schumer claims not nearly so much. “There was not a total blanket on anything coming to the floor,” Schumer said in a phone interview. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

Well, there’s one thing coming to the floor. McConnell is obsessed with cramming the federal judiciary with men and women of a conservative bent. When President Barack Obama was in his second term, McConnell slowed the confirmation process to a mini-crawl, so he was able to gift Trump with more than 100 vacancies to fill.

Most spectacularly of all, when Antonin Scalia died in February of 2016, McConnell completely ignored Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland as his successor.

Cruz: GOP may block Supreme Court nominees indefinitely

In a vintage return to his confrontational style, Sen. Ted Cruz indicated that Republicans could seek to block a Democratic president from filling the vacant Supreme Court seat indefinitely.

After staking his endorsement of Donald Trump on a list of potential conservative Supreme Court nominees, Cruz said on Wednesday that there is precedent to limiting the Supreme Court to just eight justices. Last week, Cruz’s colleague, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), suggested the GOP should confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to avoid having to swallow a more liberal nominee under Hillary Clinton.

As is his nature, Cruz took a harder line when asked how Republicans would handle a potential Clinton nominee while campaigning in Colorado for Darryl Glenn, a longshot candidate for the Senate.

“There will be plenty of time for debate on that issue … There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice [Stephen] Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have,” Cruz said, in remarks first reported by The Washington Post.

Cruz was unlikely to vote for any Democratic nominee given his conservative ideology, but his remarks could indicate a broader shift within the GOP to halt Democrats from shifting the court’s balance to the left. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said earlier this month the GOP would be “united” in blocking a Clinton appointment, remarks he later softened.

An indefinite GOP blockade of a Supreme Court nominee would almost certainly lead to an erosion in the Senate’s supermajority requirement. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has already suggested lowering the bar for Supreme Court nominee from 60 votes to a simple majority. Under Reid, Democrats changed the Senate rules to allow all nominees but Supreme Court appointments to be approved by a majority vote.

“We need to treat it like the constitutional crisis it will be if Democrats don’t take back the Senate majority,” Reid said on Wednesday night in an email to members of the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “The Supreme Court could dwindle to 7, then maybe 6, Justices. It would turn our Justice system and our democracy on its head. The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves.”

Republicans have blocked from even holding hearings on the Garland nomination for more than seven months, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the Senate will not confirm Garland in the post-election lame duck. In his last availablity on Capitol Hill before the election, McConnell refused to entertain the possibility that the Senate may be forced to entertain a more liberal judge next year, though there may be enough centrist Republicans and those deferential to presidential prerogative to confirm a justice like Garland.

Later Wednesday, Justice Clarence Thomas lamented that the broken confirmation process was a sign of larger problems. Speaking to The Heritage Foundation to mark 25 years on the Supreme Court, Thomas did not cite the Garland blockade but noted a decline in civil behavior.

“We have decided,” he said according to The Associated Press, “that rather than confront disagreements, we’ll just simply annihilate the person who disagrees with me. I don’t think that’s going to work in a republic, in a civil society.”

Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination

Following the February 2016 death of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court on March 16, 2016. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Scalia’s death led to an unusual situation in which a Democratic president had the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court nominee while the Republicans controlled the United States Senate; before Scalia’s death, such a situation last occurred when a Senate Republican majority confirmed Grover Cleveland‘s nomination of Rufus Wheeler Peckham in 1895.^[1] Conversely, in February 1988, during an election year, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Anthony Kennedy, who was the Republican President Ronald Reagan‘s nominee for the Supreme Court, though Kennedy had been nominated in November 1987 to replace Lewis Powell who was nominated by Richard Nixon, and the vacancy had occurred in June 1987.^[2] On October 9, 1990, the Democratic controlled Senate (55–45) confirmed President George H. W. Bush appointee, David Souter, 90–9. On October 15, 1991, that same Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas, 52–48.