Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City. It's better to consider D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).
Senator Markey's promise to overturn the nuclear option is a marked departure from the partisan gamesmanship strategy that Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been using against the Trump Administration. It should be noted, however, that Senator Markey's (D-MA) anti- Nuclear Option promise is a chimera. The vow of overturning the nuclear option precedent anticipates the same conditions that former Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) when the Reid Rule blew up Senate precedent by changing the rules mid session and making the upper chamber a majority rules body. Considering the leftward swing of the Democrat Party and number of vulnerable Democrat Senators in the 2018 election cycle, Markey's promise rings as true as the Obamacare: "If you like your doctor than you can keep him'.
As if more than a handful of vulnerable Senate Democrats would allow for a confirmation vote of Neil Gorsuch. In the end, three Democrats (Sen. Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Heitkamp (D-ND) and Sen. Donnelly (D-IN)) crossed party lines to vote for cloture.
It is dubious that the public applies this legitimacy standard to the packed DC Circuit, which then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid first used the nuclear option. Hence it is not as much the "nuclear option" as the clarification of the Reid Rule.
Some may justly argue that it is the Constitutional Option, as cloture is nowhere in America's organic organizational documents, but merely a modern Senate innovation (first implemented in 1917 and modified in 1975).
Now that they are relegated to minority political status in the District of Calamity, the progressive wing of the Democrat party feel free to impose purity tests and try to effectively take over the party.
One of the litmus tests for a Senate Democrat to show their loyalty towards liberalism is to oppose President Trump's choice for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Senate Democrats may stew over a "stolen" SCOTUS pick, because the Senate Majority in the 114th Congress refused to hold hearings and scuttled former President Obama's lame duck Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland. This Senate Advice and Consent through inaction followed a 70 year precedent of not confirming SCOTUS picks in the last year of an Administration so as to let voters decide.
However some Democrats are so obstreperous that they will not meet with Judge Gorsuch, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Those who consented to meet Judge Gorsuch have been charmed by him and his impeccable legal credentials.
Liberal advocacy groups like Credo Action felt emboldened by Schumer's antipathy approach thus they warned wavering Senate Democrats that if they so much even consented to a Cloture vote for Judge Gorsuch that they will face primary opposition in the 2018 cycle.
So Democrats opposed Republicans effectively filibustering Garland through a no vote yet they want to do the same thing to Judge Gorsuch. As Chris Plante is wont to say, if it wasn't for double standards, liberals would not have any at all. Ironically, filibustering will be futile thanks to the legacy of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who invoked the nuclear option in 2013. Now all the current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) needs to do is expand the rule change in medias res to include Supreme Court nominations.
From an objective standpoint, Democrats threatening to primary vulnerable Senate Democrats to just allow a vote for a Supreme Court Associate Justice seems counter-intuitive. The Scalia replacement would not drastically change the balance of the court, so why come out with guns blazing against your own for a goal which is note a game changer.
Although Democrats only need to garner three net seats to regain control of the Senate, they face a tough election cycle in 2018 with 23 of 33 seats up. Incumbents have a much easier time fund raising and winning general elections, so why take out your own (even if they stray from the party line on some issues)? Furthermore, ten of the Senate races are Democrats in states that voted strongly for President Trump. Threatening to primary Democrat incumbents pushes them further to the left, which was not were the vox populi seems to be in those states.
If opposition from the left seems too strident, some incumbents like Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) might conclude that the grass is greener on the other side of the aisle. Even if they do not politically defect, they may be emboldened to vote their conscience to keep their integrity or burnish their independence from a progressive purge to keep their seat.
It would seem prudent for progressives to not play hardball on this Supreme Court nomination but fight like hell if a senior liberal Associate Justice (like 83 year old Ruth Ginsburg or 78 year old Stephen Breyer) or majority maker 80 year old Anthony Kennedy decided to retire. But it seems that progressives do not want to leave any powder in reserve for such a contingency.
Even though objections to the Scalia replacement were packaged as being objections to Garland's no vote or automatically opposing President Trump's pick, it seems that progressives are concerned that reversing Roe v. Wade and throwing the adjudication of abortion back to the states is at stake.
A legacy of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was the effective elimination of the confirmation filibuster.
Under the Constitution, it is the Senate's duty to confirm Executive and Judicial Branch appointments. Senate rules allowed for confirmations with mere majorities, but needed to obtain 60 votes to cut off debate (Cloture) and preclude a filibuster. The Cloture vote was intended to prevent endless obstructionism while still giving the minority some say in the proceedings of the Upper Chamber of Congress.
Needing to get enough votes for cloture was an incentive for Republicans to select more moderate appointees which required Senate consent. But such Senate niceties stopped political steamrolling by Majorities who wished to exercise their unadulterated will.
When the Obama Administration sought to pack the Court of Appeals for DC (aka the DC Circuit), which is the court of authority for regulatory bodies, it ran into trouble when its candidates might not have received the requisite support for a Cloture Vote. So then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, exercised "The Nuclear Option". Exercising the Nuclear Option had been hotly debated in the preceding decade, but then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) opted not to circumvent tradition.
Through Parliamentary legerdemain, Reid established a precedent in which he said that all judicial nominees, save Justices of the Supreme Court, would be considered on majority votes and did not have to pass the Cloture Vote threshold.
The Reid Rule was great when one's party is in control of the Senate and the White House. But in 2017, President Donald Trump will occupy the White House and Republicans have a two seat majority in the Senate. Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thinks that he can stymie the Trump Administration through the advice and consent clause as well as any Supreme Court nominations which do not represent progressive Democrat values. However, Schumer may well rue the Reid rule legacy from Dirty Harry Reid.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Salem Radio host Hugh Hewitt had an informative colloquy on the Reid Rule.
Republicans may not moderate their choices for positions which need to be confirmed by the Senate. Despite Harry Reid's contention that the "Reid Rule" excludes Supreme Court nominees, it is contented that avoiding Cloture for a Supreme Court nomination would simply be a second application of the Reid Rule precedent.
