Supreme Court Nominations

The President sends the Senate a candidate to consider. Senator 'Smith' states "I cannot support any candidate, no matter how seemingly qualified, who supports a liberal agenda. I will vote against any such candidate sent before the Senate. If the people who elect me to represent them feel this is not acceptable, they can vote me out of office. Otherwise, I will fulfill my constitutional obligation to vote for or against any candidate presented before me, in the manner I see fit." If 51 Republican Senators make such a claim, it is possible that no Justice will be confirmed until the Democrats hold power in the Senate (likely 4 years).

I voted for "OK."

I don't like it when Republicans obstruct, but I'd be an enormous hypocrite if I pretended I didn't want the Dems to do the same thing with a Republican President...

Quote: SOOPOO

If 51 Republican Senators make such a claim, it is possible that no Justice will be confirmed until the Democrats hold power in the Senate (likely 4 years).

Nate Silver gives the Dems a 75% chance of taking the Senate.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/senate/?ex_cid=2016-forecast

Quote: SOOPOO

The President sends the Senate a candidate to consider. Senator 'Smith' states "I cannot support any candidate, no matter how seemingly qualified, who supports a liberal agenda. I will vote against any such candidate sent before the Senate. If the people who elect me to represent them feel this is not acceptable, they can vote me out of office. Otherwise, I will fulfill my constitutional obligation to vote for or against any candidate presented before me, in the manner I see fit." If 51 Republican Senators make such a claim, it is possible that no Justice will be confirmed until the Democrats hold power in the Senate (likely 4 years).

Yeah, I can see that, but your scenario assumes that a hearing is even held. Suppose the Republiholes decide to not put themselves in the position of explaining why they reject the nominee, and instead, never even let the process get that far? I mean, it's not like you can trust them to fulfill their implied promise to let hearings proceed after the election.

The Republiholes could be playing a long game here. The three oldest judges on the Court are also its most liberal. If they all die in the next few years--O happy Republican wet dream!--then we have a five-member Court with one liberal and four conservatives on it. As far as I can tell, there's no restriction on the Court as far as what constitutes a quorum. They could vote 4-1 in favor of the Death to Mexicans Act's constitutionality, for example.

Quote: ams288

Nate Silver gives the Dems a 75% chance of taking the Senate.

That seems awfully high, but maybe Republican Senate candidates are having trouble disentangling themselves from the Trump wreckage as his ship slowly sinks beneath the waves.

It's interesting that a relatively small portion of the "Dems win" bar is a 50-50 tie. That means, if I am interpreting the graph correctly, that Silver thinks that the Dems are likely to obtain an outright majority. Have things changed that much in the last few weeks? His graph sure shows a lot of incipient flips.

Of course, I would rejoice at this development if it came to pass, even though it would lead directly to the destruction of the country and the earth spiraling into the sun (ask any Republican). But everybody on the sane side of the aisle has to be aware: there will likely only be a two-year time window available to get things done. If we don't see an instant magical transformation of the country into Utopia (and we won't), the Dems who are up for reelection in 2018 will take the hit for it. It'll be like 1994 all over again.

Quote: Joeshlabotnik

It's interesting that a relatively small portion of the "Dems win" bar is a 50-50 tie. That means, if I am interpreting the graph correctly, that Silver thinks that the Dems are likely to obtain an outright majority. Have things changed that much in the last few weeks? His graph sure shows a lot of incipient flips.

Nate Silver said on Twitter a day or two ago that the Nevada Democrat is polling much stronger lately and that has had a major impact on the forecast.

Quote: ams288

Nate Silver said on Twitter a day or two ago that the Nevada Democrat is polling much stronger lately and that has had a major impact on the forecast.

Well, that makes sense--though I can't find a link to it, apparently the Republican candidate said something rather Trumpish last week and he's getting barbecued for it. Apparently, the "I never said that" tactic doesn't work so well down-ticket.

Maybe, ultimately, Nevada will go for Hillary because Nevadans don't like it when casinos go bankrupt and thousands of people lose their jobs.

McCain has fallen behind in his race today.

Quote: Mosca

McCain has fallen behind in his race today.

After what he said yesterday, I should hope so. Mitch McConnell's entire pitch on delaying on Merrick was based on letting the public decide after the election. It was bogus but at least it had a shred of credibility. McCain basically said "screw the public, we're going to decide in advance regardless of who wins the election." It's dereliction of duty. He swore an oath to uphold the Constitution but he's not doing it. He should be removed in favor of someone who will. Imagine if you walked into work one day and told your boss, "I know you wanted me to get those reports done by the end of the week, but I'm just not going to. And I'll resist doing them in the future, even after you leave the company and someone else is hired as my boss."

Edit: I just checked, FiveThirtyEight still has him comfortably ahead...