Harry Reid may have set off an unprecedented constitutional crisis Thursday with his decision to allow the Senate to approve judicial nominees without 60 votes. A little historical background is in order.
When Reagan was President, Democrats vowed to block any Reagan appointment to the Supreme Court on the principle that no one acceptable to Reagan would be acceptable to them. They did block the nomination of Robert Bork. Reagan was forced to choose “moderates” because Democrats would never have confirmed a true conservative.
Republicans, however, did not block liberal Supreme Court appointments when Clinton was President. That is how we ended up with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Neither candidate was considered acceptable on ideological grounds by Republicans, but Republicans acknowledged that elections have consequences. They decided that in spite of what Democrats did when Reagan was President, Republicans would allow Clinton to appoint anyone who was legally qualified. Republicans could have blocked those appointments without resorting to a filibuster, because they had majority control of the Senate.
When George W. Bush became President, Democrats immediately began to block nominations on ideological grounds again. Apparently liberals believe that elections have consequences only when a liberal is elected. Republicans received zero credit for confirming Bader and Breyer. Democrats were determined to block both John Roberts and Sam Alioto. That is when Republicans considered the “nuclear option.” Then Senator Obama and Senator Harry Reid were outraged at the thought of this and gave angry speeches about how changing the Senate rules would be a threat to democracy. Ultimately Roberts and Alioto were confirmed after John McCain organized the gang of eight to by-pass the filibuster.
What makes this different and particularly dangerous is that Obama wants to fill three slots on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. There are current 11 slots with eight of them currently occupied. Obama wants to fill the three open slots. Republicans believe the court is adequately staffed for the current workload. They do not see the need for additional judges. Currently the court is evenly balanced with 4 Democrats and 4 Republicans.
This court is extremely important because it handles the initial legal challenges to regulations and executive orders. That obviously includes ObamaCare. If President Obama is able to add three new judges, there is a very good chance that the judges making the initial ruling on critical decisions will be likely to rubber stamp the administration’s position. In other words, Obama is trying to stack the court and Harry Reid just helped him do it. This also stopped the filibuster by Lindsay Graham that was forcing this administration to answer questions on Benghazi. The following article in The Hill explains this:
This happened once before. FDR was frustrated because the Supreme Court had a bad habit of ruling that much of his “New Deal” legislation was unconstitutional. At first Democrats tried to argue that congress could just over rule the Supreme Court. Democrats don’t like courts telling them no. Even FDR realized this wouldn’t fly, so he tried to add six new judges to the Supreme Court to tilt the balance in his favor. The following article describes this in detail:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125789097
Ultimately FDR’s great plan to stack the court fizzled. In part this was because he managed to get some of his legislation approved by the existing court. But the point was that a Democratic President, with the cooperation of a Democratic congress set about to change the rules by stacking the court. Now we have a different day and a different set of issues but the same strategy. By changing the rules in the Senate, Democrats are once again trying to stack the courts.
There are two questions here. The first question is whether or not this is legal. We don’t know the answer to that one yet. The second question is whether or not this is ethical. The answer to that is a resounding no. One of the principle things that have kept us free for all these years is the separation of powers between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. This is a deliberate attempt by one part of the legislature, the Senate, to coordinate with the President to change the judiciary. This may be the single most dangerous thing President Obama has ever done.
It appears as though both President Obama and Harry Reid are going on all in on ObamaCare. That seems incredible when there is so much evidence that ObamaCare is self-destructing. The plan seems to be to jam this through during the next 12 months without regard to the consequences so that repeal will become impossible. This looks and feels desperate.
It was interesting to note the scathing response of John McCain. Republicans in the House are furious with Senate Republicans, like John McCain, for throwing them under the bus with regard to the debt ceiling. This is the reward those Senate Republicans got for cooperating with Harry Reid.
I do not know what to predict, but this could go almost anywhere. Republicans were publicly slapped in the face when Democrats passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. Now, when ObamaCare has turned out to be a disaster, Democrats in the Senate have resorted to the nuclear option in a desperate attempt to save it. I can’t imagine anything that would infuriate Republicans more.
It is hard to predict where we go from here. Almost anything is possible. We have not seen this type of hostility between political parties in congress during our lifetime. In effect, Republicans are forced to acknowledge that Democrats are at war with the Republican Party. Don’t be surprised to if Republicans start to fight back. The main thing that has happened here is that by this action President Obama and Harry Reid have unified the Republican Party and filled it with a terrible resolve. History shows us that war seldom ends well. Expect major casualties on both sides…
TDM
I know this is not PC but our elected and appointed representatives need to have fear of us in their hearts and minds. I hate to say that on this fateful day however neither side is paying attention and they need to understand what is best for our country. There are too many “asking wht the country can do for them” elected officials included.
The question I have: Since judges receive (read somewhere) they are paid $1m per year. Maybe that includes benefits. Does congress have to approve those additional salaries? Or are they in the current annual budget? Just wondering.
What I really hope! Does the GOP have the gumption, courage or whatever to fight back?
It may be hard to predict where we go from here – but the best I can hope for is to ‘buy it’ guarding the gates – out of ammo. We are past the tipping point and the sheep are running headlong to the slaughter!
We have had Obama violating the constitution again and again and again. This may be the straw the broke the camel’s back, but I doubt it. I do not have a lot of confidence in the Republican leadership. Maybe they are too old, too tired, too apathetic, too disunified, too dispirited or too disparaged by the liberal mainstream media to do anything about each violation of the constitution. I wish that were not the case. The sooner we draw a line in the sand and put a stop to it, the less damage will be done, and the sooner we can undo the damage.