President Donald Trump has vowed to move quickly to name a replacement for late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and urged the Senate to vote before the election. Not only is he constitutionally justified in doing so, but the future political stability of our nation depends on it.
The pick, which Trump said will “likely” be a woman, is expected next week. There are a number of highly eligible, Constitution-friendly women suitable for the highest court in the land. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already pledged to move forward with the confirmation hearings, perhaps the most important since Roger B. Taney was named chief justice in 1836 and set the nation on course for Civil War.
It would be nice if the Democrats played a constructive role. After all, they threatened to shut down government in 2016 when faced with a similar situation.
Instead, realizing that the White House will name someone before the election and the Senate will hold a vote, they’re crying foul and issuing threats.
To begin with, they’ve uniformly acted as if Trump is doing something wrong or out of the ordinary in naming a replacement late in his term.
They sang a very different tune in 2016 when President Barack Obama’s pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland, was nominated.
“I’m going to do my job. I’m going to nominate somebody … It’s not as if the Senate calendar is so full that we do not have time to get this done.” At least that’s what Obama said in 2016, an election year.
Now, he feels differently: “A basic principle of the law – and of everyday fairness – is that we apply rules with consistency, and not based on what’s convenient or advantageous in the moment.”
In other words, this time when a Republican president picked the nominee he’s calling for the nomination process to be delayed until after the election.
Biden too has had a change of heart.
In 2016, he said: “I made it absolutely clear that I would go forward with a confirmation process as (Senate Judiciary) chairman, even a few months before a presidential election if the nominee were chosen with the advice, and not merely the consent, of the Senate, just as the Constitution requires.”
Strangely, in 2020, we find ourselves in agreement with the increasingly confused Democratic nominee, who now says “There is no doubt – let me be clear – that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”
The voters did pick the president. It’s Trump, who won in 2016 and remains president, despite the Democrats’ best efforts to unseat him. Based on Biden’s own words, Trump should pick the next justice, before the Nov. 3 election if he wishes. It’s his job and responsibility, no one else’s.
Democrats are trying to deflect their own hypocrisy by accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of being a hypocrite, given that he refused to hold hearings on Barack Obama’s pick to replace Justice Scalia months before the 2016 election.
But McConnell’s decisions are on a much firmer footing, as Tyler O’Neil explains over at PJ Media. Obama was a lame-duck president, and voters had just handed control of the Senate to Republicans. “You’d have to go back to 1888 when Grover Cleveland was in the White House to find the last time a Senate of a different party from the president confirmed a nominee for the Supreme Court in an election year,” McConnell said back in 2016.
Meanwhile, other Democrats across the spectrum, ranging from far left to extreme left, are throwing temper tantrums over the president naming a new member for the court. No telling what they’ll do if they win full control of Congress this year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking to ABC News’ “This Week,” refused to rule out another impeachment. “We have our options,” she said. “We have arrows in our quiver.”
Taking a page out of FDR’s playbook, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer even threatened to pack the Supreme Court with more leftists, saying, “Let me be clear: if Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year. Nothing is off the table.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, warned us all that Ginsburg’s death should “radicalize” Democrats, as if that hadn’t already happened.
Elsewhere, Democrat-linked groups such as Democracy for All 2021 and the Transition Integrity Project warn of mass demonstrations and riots if Democrats don’t win.
In essence, if Republicans don’t give in to their political tantrum, Democrats are threatening retaliation if and when they win a Senate majority. Oh, and more riots, soon to come to a neighborhood near you.
“Democrats were already talking about getting rid of the filibuster to ram through their bills, packing the courts to ensure whatever they pass is ruled legal, and creating new states to solidify power in the Senate,” wrote Townhall columnist Derek Hunter. “Why the hell shouldn’t we take them at their word? When someone tells you who they are, believe them. “
This is why who sits on the Supreme Court matters. In order to preserve our constitutional republic, we must choose justices that believe in and defend the Constitution. Period.
In recent years, the Democratic Party and its most extreme elements have adhered to a school of thought known as “Critical Legal Theory.” It posits, at its most basic, that all legal arguments have equal weight and merit, and that the law really is about adjudicating power and class arrangements in American society.
That, in short, is straight-up Marxism: An invitation to unbridled judicial activism by judges, and the treatment of the Constitution as an outmoded capitalist-class anachronism — rather than as a bulwark for democracy against tyranny and legal confusion. It’s the advent of trial by whim, not by law.
Sen. Ted Cruz’s analysis over the weekend is correct: With a potential 4-4 Supreme Court split, we can expect nothing more than political chaos from now into next year. That includes the upcoming presidential election, which, if close and filled with fraud as many now suspect, may well end up in the Supreme Court for the justices to decide.
We need justices who will base their rulings on the Constitution and established law, not their personal political preferences. Unfortunately, recent Democrats on the court do not subscribe to that belief. That includes the late Ginsburg, a fine woman of high character, civility and achievement, but a terrible Supreme Court justice.
Democrats are correct when they say much is at stake in this election. Americans will be devastated to find out just how true that is if Biden wins the White House, Schumer becomes Senate majority leader, and Pelosi holds on as House speaker. The AOC wing of the party ascends further up the power ladder, and America gets treated to years of socialist indoctrination.
Having a Supreme Court that will protect us from this insanity is essential. Trump needs solid public support, even from Never-Trumpers. Since World War II, our country’s future has never been more in danger.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
The unveiled threats of action by the Democrats against POTUS Trump’s use of his wholly legal prerogative of appointment should be first hand evidence of subversion and demands legal prosecution. The civilian and former Secretary of State, Clinton needs to be in the first row. She was never elected to office and does not have the credentials to speak authoritatively on Executive matters. She is a non-entity whose time has gone and she should be on the trash heap with all of the losers.
I hear she’s writing her 15th book on why she lost…
A sane, thoughtful, commonsense article. What is your solution to the riots and mayhem that may/will ensue if President Trump is reelected?
Article IV Section 4 of our Constitution: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”
The mayors, governors, and DAs in our country who are by policy refusing to allow arrests, charges, prosecutions, and convictions of those doing violence are violating the
Constitutional rights of their citizens and, under Common Law, causing harm through enforced inaction (a refusal to do their duty). While simple ineptitude cannot be charged, these people have made clear their decisions are a matter of informed policy, not ignorance – stripping them of protection.
Each charge of violating the Constitutional rights of an individual carries a penalty of up to 10 years in a Federal prison and up to a $10,000 fine. In a city of one million people…… You get the idea, it could EASILY become life in jail. Barr has already openly discussed charges against these people. If Trump wins the election I suspect these people will find out what our Constitution means – up close and personal.
Also, there is the matter of people funding and organizing the rioters to look into.
“far left to extreme left”
All I’ve seen since 2000 is extreme Left and crazy extreme Left.
I don’t know how this article from the editorial board can call dems hypocrites and act as if republics have been following some standard or set of norms. Obama releases a statement calling for honesty and consistency in the application of rules and that is him changing his tune? Not to mention the dozen of R senators with statements in support of not voting on SC nominees in election years.
Also, Sen Cruz was not at all worried about a possible 4-4 Supreme Court split in the 2016 election, as lower court ruling stand in that case.
I love issues and insights… smart writers.. can I republish some at isupporttrump.com?
— We need justices who will base their rulings on the Constitution and established law, not their personal political preferences. —
Therein lies the rub. It’s been a long time since a majority of the Justices on the Supreme Court had much affection for the Constitution, the principle of Constitutionalism, or the underlying premise that there is a higher, Natural Law to which the laws made by men must conform if they’re to be respected and observed. Even the late Antonin Scalia, widely praised as the recent Justice most faithful to the Constitution, had his moments of departure from that standard.