Justice, Politics, SCOTUS

Senate Judiciary Democrats Will Delay The Gorsuch Vote One Week

The Gorsuch confirmation process has problems not of the judge's own making.

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'It was THIS bigly!' (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In the midst of the Republican health care debacle, the Trump Russia investigation, nepotism, and repeatedly blocked attempts to install bigotry at our borders, conservatives have hung the star on Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch did well at his confirmation hearings, to the extent that stubborn refusal to answer even basic questions constitutes “well” in the current confirmation environment.

But the Gorsuch confirmation process has problems not of the judge’s own making. First and most obviously, Neil Gorsuch is not Merrick Garland, and I think commentators who haven’t realized that simply have not spent enough time talking to grassroots liberals who value things likes choices and rights. A Democratic vote for Gorsuch is an open primary invitation.

And then there’s Charles Schumer’s pretty reasonable-sounding argument that a president who may have colluded with foreign governments to influence an American election should probably not get to make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. The McConnell rule — that a president doesn’t get to make a Supreme Court appointment during the last year of his presidency — may well apply here.

Given everything that is going on, it’s no big surprise that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have decided to delay the Gorsuch vote for a week. It would be a pretty standard thing to do even in normal times, and these are not normal times. The senators want “more time” to review Gorsuch’s answers to written questions, as if he’s going to be less careful in his written responses than he was while giving testimony.

I think we all know that a showdown is coming. I don’t see eight votes for Republicans to break a Democratic filibuster. The question is whether there are three Republican votes to defy Mitch McConnell and uphold the filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees.

I wonder what Anthony Kennedy thinks about all this.

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Senate panel to meet on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, delay likely [Newsweek]

Earlier: Republicans Can Bust The Gorsuch Filibuster, But Can They Take What Happens Next?

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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