It's Thursday, June 23 and Day 131 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 98 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee?
Not a lot on the actual work front. However, Republicans are gloating about the Supreme Court's deadlock on President Obama's immigration orders, a deadlock that effectively blocks those orders, but leaves the millions of immigrants affected by them in limbo. That's what happens when the court is deadlocked, says Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin. That's what happens when "Senate Republicans refuse to do their job, when they say we're going to play politics with filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court."
The decision of the Supreme Court, sadly, shows the tragic human cost of the Senate Republican strategy to recklessly refuse to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of justice Scalia. […]
It's the first time in the history of the United States the senate has turned its back on a presidential request to fill a vacancy on the supreme court. And we warned the Republicans this could create some problems. Today we see exactly the kind of problem that can be created. The human cost of the Senate Republicans' reckless refusal to fill this vacancy on the Supreme Court is going to be felt by literally millions of people. Today the supreme court failed to resolve the legal challenge to DAPA and expanded DACA, the executive orders of the president. The result of that tie vote, 4-4 tie vote, the result of that tie vote leaves millions of families across America in legal limbo. […]
The net result of the Republican refusal to fill that vacancy is to create an injustice across America for millions living in this country, an uncertainty about their future. That is the height of constitutional irresponsibility, and it played out across the street and was announced just minutes ago. This is what happens when the Senate Republicans refuse to do their job, when they say we're going to play politics with filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court. […]
There are a handful more critical decisions yet to be handed down by the court, including a momentous abortion case challenging the Texas laws which, if allowed to stand, would mark the deepest erosion of Roe v. Wade to date. There's a reason it's called the "supreme" court. This stuff matters.
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