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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#121

Post by michaelt »

Steko wrote: post #40
udfalkso wrote: post #3

A judge quoted in the article said, "my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected." Presumably he's talking about selecting a replacement to the supreme court. Is this accurate? How long does this process typically take?

The longest confirmation in history was apparently Brandeis at 125 days. Assuming Obama takes about a month to get a nomination together that leaves just over 300+ days left in this administration. That said, would not surprise me to see the Senate serially find reasons to reject say 3-4 candidates or screw precedent and just take forever to run out the clock on purpose. They will likely also have pro forma sessions…

Do you think candidates who turn the job down will be expecting another chance later?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#122

Post by tptacek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #87
udfalkso wrote: post #3

A judge quoted in the article said, "my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected." Presumably he's talking about selecting a replacement to the supreme court. Is this accurate? How long does this process typically take?

Typical is irrelevant, its a political process and the Republican majority in the Senate will be under strong pressure from within their own party's base to block any Obama nomination, both on ideological grounds and for strategic reasons (to preserve the nomination for their Presidential candidate, should they win.) I wouldn't be surprised if there is no action until after the election (if a Democrat is elected), or…

There's some merit to the argument that the voters should decide, too. It's not like this is a year where the outcome of the election is predictable; in fact, if anything, the GOP is on balance disfavored: call it a 50/50 shot at the Presidency, and a less than 50/50 shot at keeping the Senate, due to the 2016 map.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#123

Post by e40 »

mikerichards wrote: post #79

Considering the constant 5-4 decisions, there's 0 chance that a new justice will be confirmed until the next President takes office

Considering the constant 5-4 decisions

That has nothing at all to do with how justices are confirmed. As others have pointed out, the last two Obama appointed justices were appointed in less time.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#124

Post by mikeyouse »

mikerichards wrote: post #116
saalweachter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, but that's why they elected Obama, twice.

True, but considering the circumstances, it's not going to happen until at least the next President is elected. The democrats would do the same thing.

I'm not sure about that. I lean to the left but my biggest complaint is how easily democrats get pushed around.. My guess is that after a month of editorials in the WSJ and the constant drumbeat on the trail, they'd offer to vote on a centrist candidate, the republican in office would nominate someone pretty far right, and then to save face, they'd vote anyways and lose the vote.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#125

Post by tome »

tptacek wrote: post #61
work-on-828 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who strongly supports marriage equality and read the full opinion when it came out, I was kinda dismayed to find the dissent a more convincing argument. Did anyone else experience this?

No, "good outcome, bad reasoning" is a pretty common opinion about Obergefell .

Did you mean "Yes"? Otherwise I can't understand what you're trying to say.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#126

Post by tptacek »

nwhitmore wrote: post #78
cowsandmilk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhhhh... might want to check your facts on that one. Both Roberts and Alito went through on timelines similar to judges nominated by Reagan, H.W., and Clinton. The only nomination from Bush that faced extreme opposition was that of Harriet Miers, and that was from conservatives, not the democrats.

Does the name Robert Bork mean anything to you?

Reagan nominated Bork, not GHWB.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#127

Post by tzs »

There has been some discussion here about whether or not Obama has time to get a replacement nominated and confirmed, or whether the Republicans can slow things down enough to push it to the next President (who they hope will be one of them).

I wonder if it might be better for the Democrats to not even try to get a nominee through before the next election. From what I've seen liberal/progressive leaning younger voters are more likely than conservative leaning younger voters to feel that Congress and to a lesser extent the President are totally beholden to corporate lobbyists and that voting doesn't make a difference so why bother.

An open Supreme Court position at the time of the election could give Democrats something to focus their get out the vote message on (for both the Presidential election and Congressional elections) that might get through to some of those younger liberal/progressive leaning voters.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#128

Post by lotharbot »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #95
aioprisan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not possible, since a senate confirmation this close to elections is likely to just be punted on for a year.

Well, consider: You're a Senate Republican. Obama nominates a guy who is certainly no Scalia but legitimately isn't the worst . You can hold out and hope that a Republican gets elected, but there's a good chance that'll be Donald Trump, and what kind of a judge is that weirdo going to nominate? You hate that guy and think he's a blemish to the name of the Republican party. Also, there's still a real risk Hilary/Sande…

> "there's a good chance that'll be Donald Trump"

it's actually pretty unlikely. Fivethirtyeight has a bunch of good articles about this, but the simplest piece of information pointing to it: Trump is intensely disliked by about 60% of the voting public. He's got a vocal and enthusiastic following, but once you go outside that bubble, he simply doesn't have room to grow.

I voted for Bush twice, McCain, and Romney, and I'll vote for either Hillary or Bernie (two candidates I can't stand) over Trump, and I'm far from alone.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#129

Post by wildmusings »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #112
vonnik wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The stay he supported on the Florida recount was rampant federal interference in a state matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Stay_of_the_Flori... Indirectly, he gave us eight years of incompetence and Iraq, a horrible farce of a war.

I wish Gore had won, and I don't know enough about law to have an opinion on the specifics of the case. But I am at peace with it for a simple reason: that election was within the margin of error. We can put a lot of stake into details of state law, but in reality it was a draw. Frankly I think the fairest thing would be a coin flip. In absence of that, I think "play it where it lies" is a fine proxy. I don't think a…

I believe a privately run recount was conducted afterwards and Bush still won.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#130

Post by angersock »

orbitur wrote: post #43

He didn't actually say that, and I'm not sure how it spread. However, he's still a terrible person, and here's the quote yours spawned from: “There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction.” edit: This was originally in reply…

Why is that a terrible quote?

Remember, there's a reason that the process and traditions are followed. It helps provide (theoretically) a uniformity of enforcement.

In the case of your quote, the exact same mechanism for "evidence found after the trial changes to innocence" is quite possibly used for "evidence found after the trial changes to guilty". It nudges up against double-jeopardy.

There are other problems with such an approach.

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