Sen. Bernie Sanders says he does not support urging Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down
Sen. Bernie Sanders says he does not support urging Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down
In an interview on “Meet the Press,” the senator said it would not be “sensible” to ask Sotomayor to step down while Biden is still in office.
As usual I'm with Bernie on this. Why would Democrats want to immediately give Trump a new Justice to nominate. Democrats are too focused on Kumbaya and bipartisanship to actually nominate a Justice.
And even if she stepped down, the current Senate, which they don't even have a majority with the Democrat-In-Name-Only turned independents Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are likely to block any decent Democrat proposals until the Senate tilts full Republican, where it definitely won't happen.
They have a better chance of keeping the status quo by crossing their fingers she stays in position for at least the next US election. IMO it's either you roll the dice, or you admit defeat right away.
Isn’t the argument that a younger replacement would be fast tracked now, while the Dems had the whitehouse and the senate?
The left obviously doesn’t want to leave a vacant seat for Trump. The point is to lock the seat down even harder.
Different circumstances, same result.
Previously McConnell prevented the Senate from voting on Obama's nomination for months before the election.
In this case, Biden could nominate someone, and Schumer would undoubtedly call a vote ASAP, but then you'd risk the vote failing because of Manchin and Sinema. They've already publicly betrayed the Democratic party and they're both on their way out; there's nothing for them to gain by playing ball with a SCOTUS nominee.
The result would be exactly as before: Trump would come into office and get a SCOTUS pick right away, the only thing that might be different is whether McConnell or Scott gets to submit the pick. Hell, he might get to do it anyway if Alito and/or Thomas retire, so why give up another seat?
If she's like Ginsburg, she's got at least 4 more Presidential elections in her.
But in the end, it won't matter. Trump will convince Thomas and Alito to step down like he did Kennedy and we'll have a 5 member Trump court for the remainder of our lives.
Yep. If people thought the first 4 years were bad. The bar has been lowered so much its in orbit beyond the moon.
The bar was on the floor.
These dumb mfers brought shovels.
If we get elections in the future, it's possible we'll get Democrats in two of the branches, and if they get their shit together they can pack the courts. It's not entirely hopeless, but it does ride on the Democrats being remotely competent as an organization for even a brief period of time.
That would require Democrats to fight and not cave and we all know how that works out.
Bernie is 83 and still very active, of course he doesn't see the wisdom in asking the 70 year old who is otherwise in good health to step down. This isn't the same situation as the late 87 year old Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was constantly in and out of the hospital.
That's not the problem; the problem is there's no guarantee that you'd get the Senate to approve a replacement in time.
Now that Manchin and Sinema are on the way out, what incentive is there for them to approve a Biden appointee to SCOTUS, especially with a particularly vengeful GOP administration coming in?
She does have type 1 diabetes but it's manageable.
I'd be cool with her fucking off if we had a reasonable senate majority. otherwise, this is just handing a gift to the republicunts.
She is literally the smartest person in the court by far and remains to be. We can talk replacement when she loses her mind like Breyer did.
I would support this if I had any faith in the Democrats to get their shit together and actually appoint someone before Trump takes over. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them to replace her with Bill Barr in another attempt to win over never-Trumpers.
Biden pack the fucking courts you fucking spineless brain dead cunt!
The window has closed. She'll resign and Congress will delay it until its Trump's appointment. This would be unutterably stupid to do now with 2 months left.
IMHO, it’s only worth doing if the independents who caucus with the Dems can be brought onboard with a replacement proactively before she resigns.
If you can’t get the Manchins of the world to proactively back a specific fast-tracked replacement, don’t even try.
Bold of you to trust either of the two independents would agree to and then not immediately block it once she stepped down.