Dems Want Deal on Gorsuch

The Dems are looking for a deal that would allow Neil Gorsuch through without a filibuster, but would preserve the filibuster for further appointments. The dumbest thing the Stupid Party could do is take this deal. Force the Dems to filibuster Gorsuch, and use the “nuclear option” if they do. The GOP already know the Dems would have done this to them if they had taken the Senate and White House and we were looking at Hillary’s nominee to replace Scalia. They know because when they thought victory was a lock they said as much.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind compromising on a more liberal originalist like Randy Barnett if one of the Dem appointees on the Court kicks it or retires. But for political reasons, that probably isn’t happening. Neither side wants a justice who will limit government too much.

I’ve thought for a while that they should return to the old filibuster rule that requires the filibustering Senator to actually hold the floor. You’d think Senators would love opportunities to grand stand on issues that are important to voters, especially in this social media driven world.

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Gorsuch Vote Goes Nuclear
  2. The Gorsuch Shoe Will Drop This Week
  3. Most Pro-Gun Provisions Stripped from Spending Bill

6 thoughts on “Dems Want Deal on Gorsuch”

  1. I agree with the notion that filibuster should return to requiring Senators to hold the floor — and add to this, that filibusters should hold up other bills from being considered.

    These two rules ensured that controversial bills would get debated, regardless of majority support, and that there would be pressure by both the majority and the minority to work something out, because otherwise the Senate wouldn’t be able to do anything.

    By removing these two constraints, the “filibuster” is now nothing more than requiring a somewhat super-majority of votes to get something passed.

    At this point, though, I’m convinced that the filibuster can only be saved by Constitutional Amendment — both sides have neutered it to the point where it would require the party in power to give up power, which would be absurd to do, because the next time the minority party gets into power, they’ll just nuke the rules anyway, and be done with it.

    Oh, and I would add this: If the Democrats had a history of keeping their deals, then yes, making a deal to prevent a filibuster makes sense. But they don’t. They have only one guiding principle: to do that which gives them more power, and to criticize that which gives them less power. Making deals they don’t intend to keep is merely one way they can use to get more power (at least in the short term; long term, not so much…).

  2. This could all be solved if they passed an actual law mandating that the filibuster be an actual filibuster with their old decrepit asses being forced to stand up and talk the entire time. No bathroom breaks and you can’t stop talking for more than 60 seconds every hour. A politician can only filibuster once every 120 hours. No more than 2 minutes can pass before the next politician starts filibustering in order for the filibuster to continue. The filibuster must continue regardless of the time unless the court is officially in recess.

  3. The Huffington Post, coming from the attitude that anything pro-gun about Gorsuch could be made into a hit-piece, could only come up with the following:

    WASHINGTON ― Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, said Tuesday that the court’s 2008 decision declaring a fundamental right to possess guns for self-defense in the home is settled law.

    “[District of Columbia v.] Heller is the law of the land,” Gorsuch told Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the second day of his confirmation hearing. “Whatever is in Heller is the law, and I follow the law,” he said earlier during that same exchange.

    The judge hasn’t had an opportunity to rule directly on the scope of the Second Amendment during his time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. But the National Rifle Association was comfortable enough with Gorsuch’s record to praise Trump’s choice.

    So far, to the best of my knowledge, we have Gorsuch quoting something Scalia wrote in Heller (and those being misrepresented as his own words); and saying that Heller was “settled law,” while stopping short, for some reason, of saying it was settled law that he agreed with.

    So I’m wondering why we are getting so hot and bothered over the guy. Don’t the corporate rights people and religionists have enough clout to put him over the top? Why do they need us for cheerleaders?

  4. Never underestimate the Stupid Party’s ability to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

    We’ve seen time and time again they leave their spines (and testicles where applicable) at the door when confronted by anything that might be viewed as controversial in the media.

  5. “We’ve seen time and time again they leave their spines (and testicles where applicable) at the door…”

    They do it so often that one might begin to think they did what they had really intended to do all along, and had only been bullshitting factions of their base when they pretended otherwise.

    Of course that would beg the question who the Stupid Party to those transactions was. The cpaital-P Party, or its base?

  6. Pingback: SayUncle » So, they’ll take the deal then?

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