Last week, Republican Congressman Steve King admitted what nearly everyone without red-tinted glasses already knows–the Senate Republicans’ refusal to even consider anyone President Obama nominates to replace Antonin Scalia is a naked political power play. Well, within hours of Obama nominating Merrick Garland to Scalia’s old seat, a number of Republican Senators all but admitted that this talk about precedent requiring them to not even consider a replacement is nothing more than hot air.
You may remember that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that if Obama named someone to Scalia’s seat, he wouldn’t even get a hearing. No one seriously believed that would stick, so it came as no surprise when several Senate Republicans said they would at least meet with Garland. What came as a surprise was when one of those Republicans, Jeff Flake of Arizona, said that if the Democrats win the presidential election, he would vote to confirm Garland in the lame-duck session.
Flake said that in the event Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, it’s very possible that she will choose someone who is much more liberal than Garland, who is known to be a moderate. Anyone who is “concerned about the direction of the court,” Flake said, would swallow his or her pride and confirm Garland “in a lame duck.” Flake isn’t the only one thinking along those lines. According to NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg, who broke the news that Garland was Obama’s pick, a number of Senate Republicans told Obama via “a back-channel message” that if he picked Garland, they would confirm him in a lame-duck session if the Democrats won the presidential election.
But wait a minute. McConnell declared in no uncertain terms that no one submitted for Obama will even be considered, and that the next president should be the one to decide who fills that seat. And yet, a significant segment of his own caucus appear ready to join the Democrats in voting to confirm Garland in a lame-duck session. Sounds like McConnell has just been left on an island.
People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch discovered an even more brutal piece of honesty from a Senate Republican a week earlier. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is all but certain to be a one-term wonder no thanks to this idiocy, made a startling admission on WBGR in Madison’s “Morning Mess.” Listen here.
Johnson said that that if a Republican president were the one making the nomination at this juncture, there would be “a little more accommodation” in the Senate Republican caucus. Under current circumstances, Johnson said, protecting the composition of the court demands waiting until after the election for any pick to be considered. Later, a spokesman for the Johnson campaign tried to unring the bell, saying that his boss “did not say what the Senate would or would not do in a hypothetical situation.” Sounds like that’s exactly what Johnson did.
If this tantrum was about a president not making judicial nominations in his last term, why should it matter if a Democratic successor to Obama were to pick someone more liberal? And why should the party affiliation of the current president matter in such a situation? The answer to both questions is obvious. This farce has nothing to do with precedent and everything to do with politics.
