In the days following the passing of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, much teeth gnashing has commenced about the path forward in the wake of his death. A host of Republican senators, including a number that face difficult bids for re-election later this year, have made it clear that they believe the place on the bench should remain vacant for the next year. This odd interpretation of “advise and consent” aside, others have taken an even more extreme step. On Twitter and elsewhere, many have made the odd request for Obama to be the “adult” in the room by … wait for it … appointing a Republican to the bench.
Now, I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but it is pretty funky that a few of these political writers all landed on the exact same name for this act of political magnanimity. In an article Monday morning in The Morning Consult, writer Reid Wilson made the argument that Obama could make a “legacy pick” by giving the gig to Nevada’s Brian Sandoval, who has served for the last five-plus years as the Republican governor of the state.
Herein lies the crux of Wilson’s reasoning for the pick:
Perhaps, though, Obama should think even further afield. He might consider a popular Republican from a swing state, one whose ideology would be acceptable to Democrats and whose stature would be impossible for Senate Republicans to ignore — one who has won unanimous Senate confirmation to a judicial post in the past, and who is said to yearn for a return to the judiciary.
That candidate exists. His name is Brian Sandoval.
The anointment of Brian Sandoval as some kind of a centrist savior in these horribly polarized times have long been a staple of political media coverage.
In his piece Monday for The Morning Consult, Wilson lays out his ideological case for Sandoval as a Dem-friendly Republican who can unite the masses:
But Sandoval does not fit the mold of traditional Republican, even in Western states where the party embraces a more libertarian bent. He is unabashedly pro-choice, and he was the only Republican governor to both expand Medicaid and establish a state-run health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Though he opposed Obama’s signature domestic achievement from the start, Sandoval has said that it became the law of the land after the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality.
Curiously, on the issue of health care, Sandoval quite overtly ignored that common cause with the Democrats had anything to do with his decisions. As our own Joan McCarter pointed out at the time, he outrageously promoted the gains on health care in his state, but pointedly ignored the role that the changes in federal law (cough … Obamacare! … cough) had in those statistical improvements.
That said, let’s start with one basic argument: that Sandoval is seen as some kind of moderate is not a sign of his inherent centrism, it is a sign of how far to the right the party has lurched. In any time other than the one we’re living through, nobody would’ve seen Sandoval as anything other than what he is: a standard-issue conservative Republican.
After all, this is a governor who has been active in pushing NRA-friendly leadership on the gun issue, who has been willing to also accept right-wing education policies put before him by the newly minted Republican state legislature in the Silver State. Indeed, the bill he signed in 2015 made Nevada one of only five states in the Union to promote private school/homeschool vouchers.
And, in the battle of the federal government versus the Bundy family, one might forget which side Sandoval cuddled up to.
That he has not wedded himself 110 percent to party orthodoxy, in a time when a single act of apostasy is seen as capitulation allows him to be defined as a moderate. But even here, there is a painfully obnoxious double standard. President Obama, for his part, has promoted a number of initiatives that would be considered counter to his party base. But you’d have to look far and wide to find a member of the political press define him as a moderate. Apparently, instead, he cannot be defined as a centrist without extraordinary measures. Like … say … appointing a Republican to the bench.
And, even if Sandoval were a true centrist, this would still remain a terrible idea. First of all, Sandoval is only 52 years of age. The president has the right to appoint whomever he/she feels is qualified to serve in the office. In this rather unusual circumstance, perhaps an argument could be made for a placeholder. But no credible argument can be made that the president should appoint someone who will serve, quite possibly, for three decades.
Second of all, this would be a textbook example of rewarding bad behavior. Since Saturday (and in some cases, before the body was even cool), Republicans have reflexively called for no consideration to be given for an Obama nomination to Scalia’s seat. This is despite the fact that to do so would be essentially without precedent. For Obama to appoint a Republican, solely in the name of appeasing Republican opposition, would be to invite future extraordinary displays of petulant partisanship.
Of course, one of the most maddening aspects of this debate is precisely that: the expectation that it is Obama that must act above party, and not his Republican cohorts in the U.S. Senate. As Wilson writes:
In choosing Sandoval, Obama would have the opportunity to cement another part of his legacy. The candidate who ran under the banner of hope and change is also the candidate who paid for more negative advertisements than any other in history. His fundraising ability virtually single-handedly rendered irrelevant the system of federal campaign-matching funds. Obama is, without doubt, as political as most of his predecessors. (...) it is up to the current president to shape his own image, and the culture of Washington he will leave behind when he exits himself in eleven months.
It is telling that the press (Wilson is far from alone here) place the onus solely on Obama for determining “the culture of Washington.” The irony, as Wilson notes, is that even if Obama were to appoint Sandoval (or some other Republican the media deems as sufficiently centrist), the GOP bloc in the Senate would probably scuttle the nomination, in any event. Which would have political consequences, to be sure. But, hopefully, this reflexive call for gridlock witnessed this weekend will have consequences on its own. But media insistence that Obama is somehow equally to blame (or, more maddeningly, solely to blame) if he doesn’t appoint a Republican to the Supreme Court will undoubtedly mute those consequences, and help let the GOP off the hook for their unprecedented and outrageous behavior.
