It took Senate Republicans a couple of days to realize that swearing ahead of time that they’d refuse to even consider any Supreme Court nomination from President Obama didn’t look good, so on Tuesday they started walking it back a little—and the backwards stumble continues.
They’re not saying they’ll be reasonable, mind you—they’re basically saying they’ll block any nomination but at a slightly later, more media-friendly point in the process. They’ll give a candidate a hearing … and then vote them down without serious consideration. But that’s progress! Ted Cruz and his ilk wouldn’t be giving even this much ground, so you can bet this is going to lead to some nasty Republican infighting. For one thing, Senate Republicans will face serious pressure from outside groups:
“Our strongest strategy is to not have hearings,” Curt Levey, the executive director of FreedomWorks Foundation and a veteran of past Supreme Court nomination fights, told reporters on a conference call. “This is about the right of the American people to wait until November. ... To hold a hearing is to put the focus on the nominee rather than the situation.”
It’s actually the situation, too, where the situation is Republicans keeping a Supreme Court seat vacant for a year—against all historical precedent.
In addition to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley and Sens. Pat Toomey and Thom Tillis, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who’s up for re-election this year, has backtracked in exactly that “sure, I’ll vote … no” kind of way, saying:
So put it up for a vote and vote an individual down. I don’t think there’s much of a difference one way or another.
Yeah … if you tell the media “when we hold a hearing, it’s all a trick to look reasonable and we really have no plans to give any candidate a chance,” eventually it’s going to sink in. It might take some time, but they’ll get there eventually.