It's Wednesday, June 22 and Day 130 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell laid down his Supreme Court blockade: No meetings, no hearings, no votes on his replacement. It's also Day 97 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee?
They voted on legislation from Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain to chip just a little bit more of the Fourth Amendment away by allowing the FBI to skip that whole judicial review process when collecting electronic records of suspects. This is their answer to Orlando, even though it's not an answer at all. The FBI director, in fact, said it wouldn't have made a difference because the FBI had the shooter's electronic records, obtained with a judge's consent. Oh well.
And yes, this is the same Republican party that argued keeping people on the terrorist watch list from getting guns was a problem because there wasn't judicial process. No, it doesn't make any sense. But they almost won, anyway. It fell just 58-38, too close. Too close because too many Democrats have not been paying enough attention.
At least dozens of those Democrats did the right thing in joining fellow Democrats in the House to force a vote on gun safety. So that's a good reason for the Senate not to be getting much done in their own chamber.
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