It should come as no surprise that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, in particular, wants to effectively shut down the Supreme Court for a year. Shutting down government is after all his trademark thing.
By the way, the Senate's duty is to advise and consent. You know what? The Senate is advising right now. We're advising that a lame-duck president in an election year is not going to be able to tip the balance of the Supreme Court.
That we're going to have an election, and if liberals are so confident that the American people want unlimited abortion on demand, want religious liberty torn down, want the Second Amendment taken away, want veterans' memorials torn down, want the crosses and stars of David sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans, then go and make the case to the people.
I don't think the American people want that.
Helpful tip: We had an election. We keep having them, every four years, and we had one in 2012 when it was very clear that the result might "tip the balance of the Supreme Court," and the result was America electing Barack Obama as president by a healthy margin. It was in the papers. Ted Cruz, one presumes, was there, and "the American people" had their say. There's no addendum to the Constitution saying the black president has to give up his enumerated powers a year early because Republicans don't like the outcome of that election and instead insist we wait for one that's more to their liking.
As for the rest of that hooey—the stars of David bit is especially noteworthy since, of course, one of Justice Antonin Scalia's memorable episodes of "legal brilliance" was supposing that Jewish and other non-Christian soldiers should be just fine with crosses on their memorials because the Christian cross isn't a religious symbol after all—I think this may be one of the few areas where Donald Trump can handle Ted Cruz's public orgasm of fibbing better than we can.
So we're really having the conversation, then, about whether to keep the Supreme Court in effective limbo for an entire session because Senate Republicans simply don't want Barack Obama to execute that particular duty. It's going to be a thing. The Republicans are unanimous—the sitting president, the one that they subjected to birtherism, to "You Lie!" outbursts by southern politicians, to constant public suppositions that he was secretly working for the benefit of Kenya and/or Muslims, the president who has supposedly been just about to take everyone's guns and/or let the furriners take over each and every month from his inauguration onwards, and not a bit of it having anything to do with the president being black, we are told, those same folks are now quite insistent that the president must simply give up this power, too, because of a brand-new but deeply held tradition that says he just should, that's why.
And at least two thirds of the pundit corps are going to run with this like it's a serious argument, because they are stupid, stupid people who simply repeat whatever their preferred candidates say and don't give a damn if it makes a lick of sense. Sure, why not. Presidential terms only last three years now. Everybody knows that.
Every time I think our nation's politics couldn't possibly get more dysfunctional or our politicians less capable of actual governing, they prove me wrong. This, too, is part of Scalia's legacy. He was a great fan of reading into the Constitution whatever he wanted to read, and then pooh-poohing anyone who thought he ought to hold himself to the same reasoning the next time he read it. The hallmark of modern conservatism is praising the Constitution while explaining why this or that portion of it doesn't apply, after all. Is the president really commander in chief during election years? Golly, Mr. News Person, it's hard to say.