It's Thursday, June 9 and Day 117 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 86 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. What's the Senate doing today instead of considering the Supreme Court nominee?
Nothing to do with judges. They're working on the defense authorization, John McCain's annual opportunity to have repeated meltdowns on the Senate floor over how much the nation is not funding defense. He'll really have a meltdown if Mitch McConnell makes good on his threat to keep the Senate in on Friday, because who wants to work on Friday?
But back to the judges they're not confirming. It's not for a lack of effort on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's part. On Wednesday, she attempted to bring up the votes of 15 uncontroversial and long-stalled nominees, all of whom were approved by committee months ago.
"Instead of working to make government function, to make government more efficient, Senate Republicans have made it their priority to keep key positions empty for so long as possible, to hamstring efforts to protect consumers and workers, to delay efforts to hold large corporations accountable, to slow down work to promote equality," Warren said. "The view of Senate Republicans seems to be pretty simple — if government isn't working for them, for their rich friends or for their right-wing allies, then Senate Republicans won't let it work for anyone."
Unsurprisingly, McConnell denied her request. He also declined to engage in Warren's arguments about judicial emergencies and the functioning of the government. Instead, he said that Obama has been treated fairly, with more judges confirmed over his entire presidency than in George W. Bush's, although most of Obama's came while Democrats ran the Senate.
McConnell added that it is his party's role to decide which judges to bring to the floor, not Warren's. "The minority is not going to dictate to the majority when and how we will do so," McConnell said, also noting that he allowed votes on two trade court judges on Monday.
Not deterred, Warren went on to try to get votes for nine of the 15 judges in her original request. McConnell objected again. Then she reduced it to just four of them.
By that time, McConnell had left the floor and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch was left to object, proving Warren's point. "There is no asterisk that says only when the majority leader has an embarrassing political problem or except when the president is named Barack Obama," in the constitution, said Warren. "It is not what the founders had in mind because it is small, it is petty and it is absurd."
Small, petty, and absurd. That's the Republican party.
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