Campaign Action
The New York Times sounds and awful lot like Sen. Jeff Merkley and Daily Kos on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Let's start with the title of their editorial on the nomination: “Neil Gorsuch, the Nominee for a Stolen Seat:”
The seat Judge Gorsuch hopes to sit in should have been filled, months ago, by Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the court last March. Judge Garland, a former federal prosecutor and 20-year veteran of the nation’s most important federal appeals court, is both more moderate and more qualified than Judge Gorsuch. [...]
Supreme Court nominations are among the most important decisions a president makes, and certainly the most enduring: A nominee like Judge Gorsuch could sit on the court for more than three decades. At a rally last summer Mr. Trump said: “Even if you can’t stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, you’re going to vote for me. You know why? Justices of the Supreme Court.” That may have played well on the campaign trail, but Mr. Trump’s failure to choose a more moderate candidate is the latest example of his refusal to acknowledge his historic unpopularity and his nearly three-million-vote loss to Hillary Clinton. A wiser president faced with such circumstances would govern with humility and a respect for the views of all Americans.
"Humility" and "Trump" don't belong in the same sentence, but that doesn't let Senate Republicans off the hook for stealing this seat for the popular vote loser. As Sen. Jeff Merkley says, they should not be rewarded for it, either.
If anything is worth a fight, it's a Supreme Court seat that this 49-year-old nominee could hold for the next three decades. If anything is worth a fight, it’s the institutions enshrined in the Constitution. Republicans are doing everything in their power to sully them, to twist them into tools for their own fascistic designs. There's no more important fight.