Dean John Eastman On The Powers Of The Senate Vis-à-vis The SCOTUS Vacancy

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Show:

Hugh Hewitt

Monday, February 15, 2016

 

Audio

 

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HH: And the critical point is that there were no objections from the Democrats at that time. And now we have a much shorter period of time during a period of time when I want the Court to be center stage of the presidential election, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, backed now by Senators Ayotte, Johnson and Portman, all from swing states, all up for reelection, so this is just not going to happen, John. And it is well within their Constitutional authority not to give a hearing or a vote to President Obama’s nominee. And he is certainly welcome to make one, though.

 

JE: Well, that’s right, and it’s also in their authority to hold hearings and decide this is not somebody that we can have on the Court, because they don’t have a view that the Constitution is binding, that the judge’s role is to interpret, not to reinterpret the Constitution. And you know, somebody that has demonstrated, by their prior careers, that they think the law is intimately valuable to their political agenda is not fit to be on the Court. So even if we had a hearing, the likelihood that the kind of person that this president would send up to try and nail the lid in the coffin on advancing his radical transformative agenda is something that the Republicans ought to oppose with every bit of their power.

 

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HH: So now let’s talk about, that’s the law. The law is the Senate and will delay. The majority leader has said so. He has enough Senate support to assure that that’s going to be the case with the statements of Senators Ayotte, Portman and Johnson over the last 24 hours. It’s a done deal. There will be no Obama appointment. And if there is one, it will only be for four or five days, or maybe four weeks between December and January of next year. That’s the law. John Eastman, my political position is different from yours. You’d like to have hearings and up or down votes. I want no hearings, no votes, and started a hashtag. Why are you right and I’m wrong?

 

JE: Well, you know, Hugh, it’s more of the political dynamic. I think there’s going to be intense pressure brought to bear on the Senate to give the president’s nominee a hearing. And I think it’s perfectly appropriate for them to say we’re not going to do this within the final months of the president’s term in office. But it remains an open question to me whether they’re going to have the backbone to sustain that position. So I’m not disagreeing with you that that’s what they ought to do. But if they do feel pressure to hold hearings, I also think they ought to really look hard at the nominee that the president sends up. And if that nominee is not willing to fulfill the oath of office, which is to apply the Constitution as written and not make it up as they go, then they would be perfectly right in rejecting that nomination and telling the president send us back to the drawing board. And if the president sends up another like-minded individual who is not going to faithfully apply the Constitution, then they ought to reject that one as well. And at some point, we’re going to have a new president elected on a platform of putting judges on the Court who actually do the job of judging rather than do the job of legislating from the bench and altering or ignoring the Constitutional restrictions on our government.

 

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