It's Wednesday, September 28, and Day 227 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 196 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy. Days until the government runs out of funding: 2.5.
The Senate, however, has seemingly resolved its stalemate, thanks to the deal worked out between House Leaders Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi. The government's lights will stay on, at least until Dec. 9 when this spending bill runs out and we have the fight all over again and the Senate can leave until after the election.
They'll leave without acting on Garland's nomination, or the few dozen others that are waiting for a floor vote. While Mitch McConnell continues to get an awful lot of the attention and blame for that, he's not alone. Almost all of the Senate Republicans are right there with him, but the one who has the power to break the blockade—Sen. Chuck Grassley—won't do it. Turns out, the Judiciary Committee chairman has a long history of obstructing this specific nominee.
To Garland, the wait might not even seem that outrageous. The last time he had a court appointment delayed by Grassley, in 1995, he waited 18 months between his nomination and a vote in the Senate. At the time, Grassley was proposing the elimination of the judicial seat he had been named to—an action not taken since the Civil War. […]
At the time, Grassley chaired a Senate subcommittee which had been investigating caseloads to determine whether some federal courts had too many judges. He argued that the D.C. court could be reduced to 11 seats, with a savings of $1 million a year, if the vacant judgeship was eliminated. His proposal would effectively negate Garland's nomination, just as the reduction of the Supreme Court seat had vacated Johnson's nomination of Stanbery. […]
Grassley's statements suggested that his proposal was not solely in the interests of fiscal responsibility. He complained that judicial appointments had become "political patronage," raising the specter of "activist judges … who are soft on criminals or who want to create their own laws."
"Despite the attacks that have been launched against those of us who want to be responsible, all we are saying is send us qualified nominees who will interpret the law and not try to create it," he said. "Send us nominees who will not favor defendants over victims, and who will be tough on crime. Send us nominees who will uphold the Constitution and not try to change it. As long as the judgeships are actually needed, if the administration sends us these kinds of nominees, they will be confirmed."
Grassley actually tried this gambit again a few years ago when he was fighting President Obama's nominations to fill three vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit. Grassley argued again that that court's workload wasn't heavy enough to warrant having these vacancies filled.
So how likely do you think it will be if we hear Chuck Grassley arguing against President Clinton's nominees, saying that the Supreme Court has been working just fine with eight justices, or seven, or five? Seems pretty damned likely to me.
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