AS SENATE MINORITY LEADER Chuck Schumer faces increasing pressure from Democrats around the country to use every tool at his disposal to oppose the Republican effort to push through a Supreme Court nominee before the election, one question has bedeviled activists: What exactly is possible?
A memo circulating on Capitol Hill, put together by several people with knowledge of congressional procedure and obtained by The Intercept, lays out some of the options that could be available to Schumer even in the face of a determined Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Senators looking to obstruct in the Senate have a dizzying array of opportunities, but a majority leader with 50 votes, plus a tie-breaking vice president, also has an extraordinary amount of power in the upper chamber. Elements of the memo were first published earlier Thursday by the Daily Poster.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., put together a similar document as Republicans were working to block the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010.
Dozens of Indivisible chapters recently sent Schumer a letter demanding he do everything in his power to block McConnell and President Donald Trump from filling the seat left vacant by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last week before a new president is sworn in. On Sunday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appearing alongside Schumer at a press conference, urged him to do the same.
Trump has pledged to nominate a new justice by Saturday, and McConnell has vowed to move quickly forward on the nomination.
The memo does not claim that victory would be guaranteed by engaging in these dilatory tactics, but lays out why the scenario is different than the confirmations of Neil Gorsuch or Brett Kavanaugh, both of which came long before the presidential election. The memo:
Re: Safeguarding the Court
Democrats must act to delay action by Leader McConnell to fill Justice Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat. Denying action before the election could markedly increase the probability that the results of the election would change the vote in the Senate and thereby allow for the seating of a more progressive Justice. Failing that, moving forward with confirmation during a lame duck session, if consent of the governed had been denied, would buttress the case for structural Court reform.
Moreover, much of the broad electorate will want to see Congressional Democrats fighting to protect the Court and their Constitutional rights. Mere capitulation to what Washington insiders see as the inevitable will be viewed by many as abandonment of the Democratic base and could undermine enthusiasm.
At least two contextual considerations make the current circumstance more favorable to the use of dilatory tactics than were the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations, both of which took place during the 115th Congress: 1) The electorate might vote to change control of the Senate and/or the White House in a matter of weeks and 2) Democrats control the House of Representatives, which can play a part in compelling certain action in the Senate.
read more:
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/24/memo-laying-out-delay-tactics-circulates-among-senate-democrats/
Replies