The Empty Chair

[Valin]

Washington Free Beacon:

Matthew Continetti

June 24, 2016

 

“If you keep on blocking judges from getting on the bench, then courts cannot issue decisions,” President Obama said Thursday, in response to deadlock in the Supreme Court over his use of executive authority to liberalize immigration laws. The president blamed the defeat on the refusal of Republican senators to consider his nominee to replace the late justice Antonin Scalia. “That may have been the strategy from the start,” he went on, “but it is not a sustainable strategy. It is a strategy that will be broken by this election. Unless their basic theory is we’ll never confirm justices again.”

 

I doubt that’s the theory behind Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s decision-making. But I also am beginning to wonder whether the president is on to something. The conventional wisdom, shared by me, is that the Republican stonewalling of judicial nominee Merrick Garland will last until Election Day, at which point one of two things will happen. Donald Trump will win, the president will withdraw Garland’s name from consideration, and the next Senate will take up Hulk Hogan’s nomination in January. Or Hillary Clinton will win, and after her inauguration Garland or some other choice of hers will be confirmed. Let’s stipulate that these are the most likely outcomes.

 

But what if we’re wrong? What if the Republican stonewall persists even after Clinton wins in November? What if Trump wins and the Democrats block his nominee indefinitely? Theoretically the nominee of any president could be denied a seat on the Court for as long as the opposing party has the votes to sustain a filibuster.

 

(Snip)