In Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's own estimation, bringing the Senate to its knees by blocking Obama's rightful Supreme Court nominee then breaking the chamber so Trump's pick could fill the stolen seat was one of his finest moments.
Indeed. McConnell took an old Republican maxim to its pinnacle: When you lose, just change the rules (i.e. cheat). It's something Republicans have engaged in for decades, writes E.J. Dionne.
It started with Bush v. Gore, when five conservative justices abruptly halted the recount of Florida’s ballots in the 2000 election and made George W. Bush president. [...]
Bush v. Gore had consequences for the court itself, because Bush got to pick two Supreme Court justices. He chose John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Roberts, it’s worth noting, went to Florida as a volunteer lawyer advising then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who had a rather large interest in his brother’s victory. Can we please acknowledge that few court nominees are pristinely above politics?
Later, Bush filled his second vacancy with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr....
First, conservative justices stole the 2000 election with an opinion they cautioned was so unprecedented, it should never be used in legal jurisprudence: "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
After stealing the election, conservatives stole two new Supreme Court seats that should have been filled by Al Gore. Then the judiciary handed the baton to the Senate, where in 2016 the Republican majority executed an unprecedented blockade of President Obama's moderate Supreme Court nominee, citing some ex nihilo rule that judges aren't confirmed in the final year of a presidency. But they went further than rejecting the nomination, they never even gave Merrick Garland a hearing or a vote because it would have been difficult for less radical Republicans like Orrin Hatch to vote against a nominee they had praised in the past.
That brings us to this week, when Democrats properly exercised their right to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination so Obama's original seat wouldn't be filled by a perhaps qualified but undeniably conservative ideologue. Senate Republicans responded by going nuclear (i.e. irrevocably changing the rules).
The Democrats had forced them to do it, they wailed. But what good is a rule like the filibuster if you're not allowed to use it? Even as Republicans like Hatch chastised Democrats for using the rule, they admitted that if Democrats had saved the filibuster for the next nominee they would change rules next time anyway.
In other words, as long as Republicans were in the majority, they would never allow the minority party to use the filibuster—this time, next time, or the time after that.
Republicans are fond of bringing up the 1987 rejection of Judge Robert Bork by the Democratic majority as the beginning of a partisan escalation that reached its inevitable conclusion this week. They can say what they want, but Democrats never changed any rules. Bork actually got a vote, first in committee and then on the floor—he was rejected both times.
Ultimately, Democrats confirmed then-President Reagan’s second try: Anthony Kennedy. It was February 3, 1988, the final year of Reagan’s presidency, when Senate Democrats allowed a Republican president to fulfill his constitutional duty.
Even when you examine filibusters by the numbers, it's Republicans who have excelled at using it: Since 1981, lower court nominees of Democratic presidents have failed at almost twice the rate of those by Republicans.
But in this particular drama, McConnell really made a special place for himself in history. Not only did he pledge to block Obama's nominee before he was even named, he also helped keep the extent of Russia's involvement in the election from voters and election officials alike. According to multiple reports, last fall McConnell torpedoed an effort by the White House to issue an official bi-partisan warning to state and local election officials detailing Russian intrusions in two states.
So McConnell checked the Supreme Court nominee of a legitimately elected president, allowed Russia free rein to influence the 2016 elections, then changed 200-plus years of Senate tradition to deliver the open seat to a president whose administration is currently under investigation by the FBI.
If at first you don't succeed, cheat, cheat again.