In fairness to the Republicans in the Senate, they’re just reading the room here. If a cloud of repeated sexual assault allegations and getting stone cold caught lying to the Senate under oath can’t help the Democrats stop a judicial nomination, then there’s really no point in even inviting the Democrats to the process. That’s why Senator Chuck Grassley’s decided to move forward during the Senate’s recess with more Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to advance a number of Trump judicial nominees — nominees in addition to the 15 the Democrats agreed to advance to trigger the recess in the first place.
Included in the rush job — which will take place tomorrow and next Wednesday — will likely be three Ninth Circuit nominees, a priority for Trump as the Ninth Circuit has routinely given him fits, and loading it with some more hacks would help a lot. On the other hand, the Ninth Circuit has already provided a rare Democratic nomination victory when senators successfully brought enough attention to Ryan Bounds’s disturbing paper trail to force him to withdraw. These hearings can make a difference… however rarely. So the obvious solution is to just stop having contested hearings!
As one might imagine, this irks Senate Democrats who haven’t fully jumped on board with the fall of the Republic, with the minority senators pointing out that there have never been judicial nominations held during a recess over the objections of the minority party. Human colostomy bag Chuck Grassley doesn’t see the problem as Politico reports:
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Grassley fired back at the Democratic letter on Monday with his own missive to Feinstein, which contended that she already had consented to nomination hearings this week and next week after he agreed to three postponements of earlier dates.
“And you specifically agreed not to object to these hearing dates when I rescheduled them at your request,” Grassley wrote to his Democratic counterpart. He reiterated his commitment to this Wednesday’s hearing but did not mention next week’s scheduled hearing, when Democrats expect the 9th Circuit nominees to get considered.
True, except as Feinstein points out, when they scheduled these hearings the Senate was still in session and expected to stay that way. The GOP’s trying to have it both ways, taking the scheduled hearings that were supposed to deal with the 15 fast-tracked nominees and using them to just move further ahead without representation from the senators who represent the majority of voters. Did I say “trying”? I meant to say “succeeding in.”
During the Kavanaugh hearings, some people argued that the Democrats should have just walked out and not participated at all rather than challenge the nominee and stoke their base. Well, now we’ll see exactly how that “not being there at all” strategy works.
Dems fume as GOP advances Trump judicial picks during Senate recess [Politico]
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.