| New York Times | - |
WASHINGTON
- Justice Antonin Scalia's death has given President Obama a
tantalizing opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court, but cementing a
lasting legacy on American jurisprudence will present a familiar
challenge: breaking the will of Republicans.
WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia’s death has given President Obama a tantalizing opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court, but cementing a lasting legacy on American jurisprudence will present a familiar challenge: breaking the will of Republicans.
On
Monday, Senate Republicans — including some who are up for re-election
in swing states — appeared to be closing ranks with Senator Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky, the majority leader, who has vowed to block any nominee
from Mr. Obama and has said that he should not even suggest one, leaving
the choice to the next president.
Senator
Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, who faces re-election this year,
backed that position on Monday. “It is common practice for the Senate to
stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a
presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was
permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential
election year,” he said in a statement. Senator Pat Toomey, Republican
of Pennsylvania, who also faces re-election, said he, too, backed a
delay.
Graphic
Supreme Court Nominees Considered in Election Years Are Usually Confirmed
Since 1900, the Senate has voted on eight Supreme Court
nominees during an election year. Six were confirmed.
Senator
Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, who faces a primary threat
from the right wing of her party, said over the weekend that she
supported Mr. McConnell. And several conservative groups have begun to
mobilize around the issue, which is already animating activists.
Congressional
Democrats, mindful of the long-term implications of the court pick,
have begun to strategize about how to pressure Republicans to at least
permit a nominee to receive a hearing. They plan to argue on the Senate
floor that Republican-nominated judges have not been delayed as long as
Republicans have suggested, and they plan to set up an online clock that
will start the day Mr. Obama chooses his nominee.
The
looming clash on Capitol Hill is a testament to the stakes: A president
has a chance to establish a clear liberal majority on the Supreme
Court. That could shift the direction of legal thought on a wide range
of issues like climate change, gay rights, affirmative action, abortion, immigration, gun control, campaign finance and labor unions.
Some
Democrats expressed confidence that they could build public pressure on
the Republicans to give Mr. Obama’s nominee a hearing.
“The idea of not even allowing a hearing strikes a chord that is pretty deep,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said. “It will mount; it will get much stronger when the president has a nominee.”
But
other allies of the president said they expected Republicans to hold
firm, given the court’s crucial role and the intensity of feelings among
conservatives. David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama,
predicted that Mr. McConnell and the other Senate Republicans would be
“implacable” on the issue for the rest of the year.
“I don’t think they are going to move,” he said. “Any Republican who breaks rank on this will face the full fury of the base.”
White
House aides said the president would pick a nominee “in due time,” but
they gave few hints about whom he was considering. Former top aides to
Mr. Obama said they expected the White House to select someone who could
overcome the Republican opposition.
“This
is a lifetime appointment and an incredible part of his legacy,” said
Stephanie Cutter, who helped guide the president’s previous nominees
through the Senate confirmation process. Ms. Cutter said she expected
Mr. Obama to avoid an obviously polarizing nomination in favor of a
sitting judge who has had bipartisan support in the past.
Graphic: How Long Does It Take to Confirm a Supreme Court Nominee?
“He’s
going to make it as appealing as possible and as difficult as possible
for the Senate not to confirm this person,” Ms. Cutter said. “He’s going
to do everything he can to get this person through.”
While
Mr. Obama’s aides try to avoid the word “legacy,” the president’s final
year in office was always going to be about defending his policies on
health care, Wall Street regulation, outreach to Iran and Cuba, climate
change and civil rights. Replacing Justice Scalia with a liberal could
do more to protect his policies than almost anything else.
Days
before Justice Scalia’s death, Mr. Obama said as much during two
Democratic fund-raisers in California. On Friday in Los Angeles, he said
it had “never been more important” to elect senators who would confirm
court nominees who would preserve hard-fought gains on “civil rights and
equal rights.”
Democrats
are counting on Republicans who are up for re-election in states with
large numbers of independent voters to support a hearing for Mr. Obama’s
nominee. But they may be underestimating the fears those candidates
have of a primary fight and the pressure from conservative groups.
“Senator
McConnell is right: Under no circumstance should the Republican Senate
majority confirm a Supreme Court nominee as Americans are in the midst
of picking the next president,” said Michael A. Needham, the president
of Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation.
In
the past, Mr. Obama has largely failed to win support from
congressional Republicans on his signature issues. Not a single
Republican voted for his health care law.
Only a handful backed his stimulus package and his efforts to increase
background checks for gun buyers. On his effort to reduce coal
emissions, they immediately challenged him in court and have so far
prevailed.
At
least one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is not facing
re-election, sought a middle ground. “Our role in the Senate is to
evaluate the nominee’s temperament, intellect, experience, integrity and
respect for the Constitution and the rule of law,” she said in a
statement.
Mr.
Schumer said he would not rule out using Republican obstruction of a
court nominee as a reason to fight the Republican legislative agenda for
the rest of the year, which centers on appropriations bills and modest
bipartisan policy measures. Next up is a bill to address the opiate drug
crisis, which is appealing to both Democratic and Republican senators
up for re-election in states with major drug problems.
But
Republicans were quick to seize on a July 2007 speech that Mr. Schumer
gave to the liberal American Constitution Society in which he said that
his party had been “hoodwinked” by assurances of judicial restraint from
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
For
the rest of George W. Bush’s presidency, he said, senators should
“reverse the presumption of confirmation” for Supreme Court nominees.
Further, he said, “I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not
confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”
Mr.
Schumer said the comparison was improper, adding that he had not said a
nominee should be denied even a hearing. “What I said is after a
hearing, if you’re not satisfied, it is legitimate to vote no,” he said.
“That’s quite different than not having a hearing or a vote.”
Follow the New York Times’s politics and Washington coverage on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the First Draft politics newsletter.
end quote from:
end quote from:
No comments:
Post a Comment