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Author Topic:   Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dead. The maneuvering begins!
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 7 of 122 (777990)
02-13-2016 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by NoNukes
02-13-2016 11:23 PM


Replacing Scalia with an Obama appointee has the potential for markedly changing the court in a way Republicans could not possibly like. Republicans are arguing that waiting until the election would give the people a say, but of course, Democrats can point out that issue has been decided by Obama winning the last election.
Also that it's not what (to take just two examples) Washington and Jefferson did when there were vacancies in election years.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by NoNukes, posted 02-13-2016 11:23 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by Theodoric, posted 02-14-2016 10:16 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(7)
Message 9 of 122 (777992)
02-14-2016 1:04 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Diomedes
02-14-2016 12:11 AM


They already tried peddling that theme at the debate. One of the Republican candidates said that it had been 80 years since a Supreme Court nominee was put forth by a lame duck president. Yet the moderator brought up the fact that Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy in his final year in office.
Regardless, the precedent (as they call it) is irrelevant.
Also, it's not a precedent, it's just an accident. It so happens that since Oliver Wendell Holmes, only one Supreme Court Justice has died or retired in an election year, and that was Sherman Minton, who retired on October 15, 1956, when it really was too late to do anything about it. I know this seems like a pretty wild coincidence, but check it out here, tell me if I'm wrong. A string of statistical flukes which mean that a thing has never needed to be done for the last 80 years doesn't mean that now, when it does, we shouldn't do it.
(Also, goddammit, a "lame duck" is an elected official whose successor has been elected but not yet sworn in. Until Election Day, Obama not only has the powers of the Presidency, but a mandate to use them.)

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 Message 8 by Diomedes, posted 02-14-2016 12:11 AM Diomedes has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 106 of 122 (780652)
03-18-2016 12:19 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by AZPaul3
03-18-2016 2:43 AM


Re: A Game Plan
I didn't read it here first, the Republicans are already talking about it.
Nice principles, GOP. It's not right for the President to nominate a judge when he's only got nine months' worth of mandate left, but it's fine for a lame-duck Senate to confirm one when they have no mandate at all, because ...
... because they can.

This message is a reply to:
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