The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a jovial homophobe, will make an already toxic electoral season worse. From all indications, there will be no move by the Senate to confirm Obama’s forthcoming nominee, making the Court a central issue in both the primaries and the November election.
Already, the GOP presidential contenders who’ve specialized in pandering to the worst instincts of their party’s social conservative base (primarily though not exclusively Cruz and Rubio, among those left standing) are pledging to put forward, if elected, a nominee who will roll back Obergefell, the ground-breaking decision in favor of marriage equality. But that’s a zero-sum change, since Scalia was the most adamant voice attacking the idea that same-sex couples’ relationships could be worthy of recognition, as he did earlier when he bitterly condenmed overturning the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, Court-watchers are also looking to future replacements, including octogenarian liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg, among others.
(Chief plaintiff Jim Obergefell takes the high road, tweeting “Thank you for your service to our country, Justice Scalia. Condolences to your family and friends.”)
Obama will likely nominate someone who is unacceptably liberal to the GOP senate but not obviously extreme (“Political calculation also militates in favor of nominating someone whose leftism isn’t obvious,” the Powelineblog predicts). But recognizing the likelihood that the next president is going to make this call, Hillary and Bernie will duke it out over who will push for a hard-core progressive.
Regardless, Obama’s nominee (or Hillary’s, or Bernie’s) will be good on LGBT legal equality while in favor of running roughshod over other liberty rights (second amendment, commercial political speech, freedom from state coercion, religious dissent….).
Meanwhile, many expect the fight will bring a halt to any bipartisan cooperation that Congress might have been able to achieve this year.
21 Comments for “Toxic Politics About to Get Uglier”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Obama will likely nominate someone who is unacceptably liberal to the GOP senate but not obviously extreme …
If the near-unanimous statements of Republican politicians yesterday are any indication, anyone the President nominates will be unacceptable to Republicans in the Senate.
The President will, however, nominate someone in due course.
The snarky side of me wants the President to nominate Senator Cruz (like the President, Harvard Law School and an editor, although not Editor-in-Chief, of th the Law Review), and watch the Senate Republicans tear him to shreds.
But the realistic side of me knows that the President will nominate a judicial moderate of impeccable reputation like Judge Sri Srinivasan of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, who was confirmed by the Senate 97-0 in 2013. We’ll have to see what the President does, but that’s my guess.
Whatever he does, we can expect, I think, Senate Republicans to do everything that they can to block confirmation. That’s the stated plan, anyway, and will create a vacancy on the Court for roughly a year and half if the Republicans are successful.
Assuming that the President nominates Judge Srinivasan or someone like him, and Senate Republicans block the confirmation for no reason other than to hold it up, it will be yet another case of the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot.
Meanwhile, many expect the fight will bring a halt to any bipartisan cooperation that Congress might have been able to achieve this year.
What bipartisan cooperation? The Republicans haven’t cooperated with the President on anything since he was elected. Why would that change in 2016?
Chief plaintiff Jim Obergefell takes the high road, tweeting “Thank you for your service to our country, Justice Scalia. Condolences to your family and friends.”
As did the President, other Democrats, and most decent people, I might add.
In a civilized world, deep political/legal disagreements do not require vilification, and political/legal opposites can be friends, as is witnessed by the friendship between President Kennedy and Senator Goldwater, President Reagan and Speaker O’Neil, Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch, Justice Ginsburg and Justice Scalia, and many others. Many conservatives think that personal friendships with liberals are traitorous betrayals of conservative principles, but that’s a reflection on them and their zealotry.
I knew Justice Scalia slightly. I did some legal work for him years ago before he was appointed to the Court. Justice Scalia was a delightful man in my experience — smart, funny, and gracious. Based on my slight experience of him personally, I can understand why he and Justice Ginsburg got along so well. I was saddened when I heard the news of his death yesterday afternoon, and I imagine that the loss his family feels is profound.
posted by Houndentenor on
Given the intentionally nasty tone of Scalia’s dissents in Lawrence, Romer and Obergefell, calls for civility sound like a sick joke. Scalia pulled was a vile man. Friendly and jovial among colleagues? Well how nice for them. He was a vile anti-gay bigot and I will not pretend to mourn him.
posted by Doug on
Perfectly stated by feelings as well. . . thank you.
posted by Jorge on
Spades are spades. If you don’t like spades being called spades, don’t build them.
posted by Jorge on
I think calling Scalia a homophobe is a huge stretch.
If the near-unanimous statements of Republican politicians yesterday are any indication, anyone the President nominates will be unacceptable to Republicans in the Senate.
I didn’t realize we had suddenly become Venezuela. I am quite fairly outraged over Senator McConnell’s announcement yesterday that he doesn’t want the President to nominate anybody for a year, with the implicit threat of blocking a vote or hearing from even taking place.
I have no shame in saying I want the court to stay centrist conservative, but as the Lindsey Graham likes to say, “elections have consequences.” At least he had the decency to trip over his hypocritical words yesterday.
Worst of all, good God, not only did Donald Trump not buck the party on this and call the coup attempt for what it is (I respect his admission he’d do the same as Obama and general statement it’s up to McConnell, though), but then he friggin’ bronco kicked the party on something truly heretical and asinine with his comments on Iraq and 9/11.
I’m seriously considering donating DNC big-time over this mess. You think it’s funny I once gave money for Rick Santorum, watch this!
The snarky side of me wants the President to nominate Senator Cruz (like the President, Harvard Law School and an editor, although not Editor-in-Chief, of th the Law Review), and watch the Senate Republicans tear him to shreds.
I was actually thinking McConnell.
Justice Scalia was a delightful man in my experience — smart, funny, and gracious.
They don’t share too many of his jokes, though. The only one I ever heard was the one on Strom Thurmond.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom: The snarky side of me wants the President to nominate Senator Cruz …
Jorge: I was actually thinking McConnell.
I don’t think that turtles are allowed to serve on the Supreme Court.
posted by Jorge on
Oh, good, God, what is it with that insult?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Turtles are turtles. If you don’t like turtles being called turtles, be politically correct.
posted by Jorge on
Wait a minute.
Are you saying turtles aren’t politically correct? That’s a new one.
If you’re seriously suggesting Mitch McConnell isn’t politically correct, I’m thinking maybe you bought too many bridges in Brooklyn.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
McConnell’s resemblance to a turtle is striking. I don’t know why you think that’s an insult. Turtles have a certain charm, after all. And while the Constitution doesn’t expressly ban turtles from serving on the Supreme Court, I think it is understood.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Of course, Court-watchers are also looking to future replacements, including octogenarian liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg, among others.
I think that “future replacements” are a real concern.
If the next President, whoever that may be, serves two terms, that President will serve through 2024. In 2024 the current Justices will be (in order of age) Ginsburg 90, Kennedy 87, Breyer 85, Thomas 75, Alito 73, Roberts 69, Sotomayor 69, and Kagan 63. What do you think the chances are that Justices Ginsburg, Kennedy and Breyer will be still serving on the Court at that point?
posted by Lori Heine on
This is why the Republican Party’s selling its soul to a bunch of religious whackjobs probably wasn’t a great idea.
There are a number of issues that a libertarian like me could agree with the GOP of Goldwater’s type. Had his view prevailed in the party, I would be a Republican. As it is, they have become so toxic that I can’t even hold my nose and vote for them.
A lot of things about the Democrats I absolutely cannot stand. I don’t want to vote for them, either. But the current crop of presidential candidates on the Republican side have their heads stuck in the panties of the populace and can’t seem to even think about anything else. Except for maybe bombing the hell out of the Middle East and paranoid obsessing over “aliens” of various sorts.
For any sort of a Republican to tut-tut about how “ugly” the political climate in this country is getting, yet have said next to nothing about the social conservative takeover of the GOP, is delusional.
posted by Houndentenor on
Scalia was a major player in the ugliness of the religious right. That’s why his name is so often bandied about. He used fancier language but it was the same religious right nonsense that plagues conservatism these days.
posted by Houndentenor on
Can we put an end to this nonsense that Obama (or Sanders or Clinton) is going to send people to everyone’s house to take away their guns? Yes, I have relatives that actually believe that and say so every time I see them. The most that has been proposed is universal background checks which 3/4 of Americans support. This is insanity. The courts are not going to deny people the right to bear arms. That’s just not going to happen.
What we might get from a more liberal court is respect for workers and the repeal of the ridiculous idea that corporations are people. Oh and the secrecy of campaign donations that is about to blow up bigtime when it is discovered that many of them are full of illegal foreign money. (And that could blow up on anyone in either party at any time.) We need some common sense in our courts again. This nonsense of running roughshod over workers and most citizens in favor of multinational corporations needs to end.
posted by Jimmy on
Commercial political speech is one thing, but commercial political bribery is not speech. Are laws against discrimination based on race, gender, and orientation to be understood as coercion from the state?
I expect the president’s pick will be another example of the rope a dope strategy he has successfully employed.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
BTW, there is an interesting chart in the NYT today showing where Supreme Court nominations fell relative to presidential elections, not that I expect the Republicans to change the meme.
posted by Jorge on
Can we put an end to this nonsense that Obama (or Sanders or Clinton) is going to send people to everyone’s house to take away their guns?
When you have liberal cities and states that do almost everything they can to ban people from owning handguns, it creates a plausible argument that there are places where liberals have already taken away people’s guns.
When liberal politicians then try to solve problems specific to cities (or suburbia in the case of the LIRR train massacre) on a national level without playing lip service to the reasons the firearms tradition is held strongly in other parts of the country, they further that suspicion. It gets worse when the reforms proposed are knee-jerk in nature and would do little to solve the problems politicians point to. It get still worse than the White House has national summits on the gun problem and doesn’t invite its foremost opposition.
You have a situation in this Democratic primary where Hillary Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders for having a D rating, a D, from the National Rifle Association, and that attack was considered to have stung at the time.
Just two or three weeks ago you were railing about the binary nature of politics that prevents individuals from having different opinions about divisive and complex issues. Your situation seems very similar to that of the moderate (insert racial/religious minority group here) who is asked “why don’t you condemn your radical fellows?” Yet you seem to deny there is even a problem. If you can’t do that much, you’ll have very little credibility in rebutting people who not only see a problem, but see it as a very severe one.
posted by JohnInCA on
Complaining about people seeking national solutions to gun violence rings as hollow as the “why weren’t they happy with civil unions” line.
That is… other “compromise” solutions were already attacked and killed. Gun activists aren’t content with *any* restrictions at any level. And trying for local laws is met with just as much hostility as laws of larger scope.
posted by Jorge on
Commercial political speech is one thing, but commercial political bribery is not speech. Are laws against discrimination based on race, gender, and orientation to be understood as coercion from the state?
Considering that the National Guard was sent several times to enforce school integration, I think that’s an easy one. “The law must be obeyed! Obey the law!”
Which law shall be obeyed? Federal or state law? Will we coerce people into accepting the state’s values or coerce people into accepting the federal government’s values?
Where and how do you draw the line between commercial political speech and commercial political bribery if you mean to allow the first and ban the second? The Supreme Court drew such a line in Citizens United, saying you can reasonably call unlimited donations to political candidates bribery, but if you create an organization scheme that eliminates the possibility of bribery, it is speech and speech alone.
What does corporate speech look like to you if not the line drawn by Citizens United? General Motors churning out Super Bowl commercials saying Vote for President Obama? What about General Motors joining with the AFL-CIO to create a suborganization, GL that buys commercials saying Vote for President Obama? How about if we get a schism in GM and the AFL-CIO a large minority of both organizations join together to make GL–not affiliated with either GM or AFL-CIO, but they buy commercials for Obama. And let’s say after Obama gets re-elected they can’t agree on anything else and disband. Is that still political speech to you? If so, then assuming you’re not okay with Citizens United, where do you draw the line?
posted by JohnInCA on
I will never understand this conflation of “obeying the law is accepting the ‘values'”.
Government mandated integration no more affected people’s “values” then government mandated segregation did. People that were racists were still racist. People that weren’t still weren’t.
posted by Tom Jefferson IIi on
Yes, my condolences go out to Scalia’s family. Agree or disagree with his ruling, their is certain amount of civility and compassion that we should expect when talking about the deceased, especially public servants.
I have not read all of his [the late Justices] opinions — majority or minority ones — and I do not have interest in every single case that the court takes up.
I am not a fan of his legal opinions on gay rights or voting/candidacy rights.
Now, Stephen goes onto use the standard, prepacked buzzwords that some conservatives use when they want to support the conservative legal victories on the court.
Frankly, I do not think that the recent Supreme Court rulings on the 2nd Amendment were that bad or incompatible with protecting public health an safety. If you are a responsible, law-abiding and remotely sane gun owner, you are not the problem.
I do not believe that a corporation should have more freedom then an actual citizen. However, that does seem to be the trend with the more conservative court members — in terms of campaign finance vs. voting/candidacy rights.
Well, unless we live in anarchy — not sure how exactly that would work, but probably not well — their is always going to be some “state coercion”. It is a prepacked buzzword, so who knows what it actually refers to.