Settling Scalia’s Succession And Paving The Way For A #PoliticalRevolution
The Washington Examiner reports that there are fears among Republicans that President Obama will unilaterally act on appointing Antonin Scalia’s successor.
The way this would work is if President Obama makes a recess appointment by February 22nd. Given McConnell’s track record with obstruction, Obama should do it, and he has good reason to since Senate Leader McConnell has already flatly announced he will “sit on his hands.”
“”We’re in recess, so Obama can, in theory, appoint someone,” a senior GOP aide told the Washington Examiner. “He could appoint [Vice President Joe] Biden tonight if he wanted to.”
Obama wouldn’t be the first president to use a recess appointment to place a justice on the high court. There have been 12 justices appointed to the Supreme Court while the Senate was in recess. Dwight Eisenhower was the last president to use that power — he did so three times, according to Scotusblog.”
With a bitter fight for the party’s nomination of the next Democratic presidential candidate, President Obama has the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and put to a very swift end to the ugly battle that is brewing within the Democratic party: appoint Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court and pave the way for the people’s choice and an inevitable political revolution. My friend, Simon, is the one whose idea this is and I think it is brilliant!
The Democratic primary in progress has revealed three undeniable truths:
- The party establishment is out of alignment with voters
- A fracturing is imminent with Sanders’ rise and the DNC’s open hostility to him
- The appointment of Clinton would satisfy those who want to see her in high office
Appointing Clinton would allow Sanders to begin focusing on a national campaign immediately to counter what we can be assured to be a formidable fight, especially if Michael Bloomberg decides to enter the presidential race as an independent.
Sanders’ populist approach is resonating beyond traditional progressive circles and his following is unprecedented, spilling into that part of the electorate that usually votes for moderate Republicans. His straightforward approach is earning him a trust and respect that certain voters on the right are unwilling to grant the current slate of candidates.
The Democratic party is in a leadership quandary. It seems to me that, for the year to come, this is the best way to avert a disaster at the worst possible time. A lifetime appointment for Hillary Clinton as Supreme Court justice is an honorable way out of a primary that hasn’t gone well for her.
Life is full of twists and turns. Scalia’s succession can be turned from potential chaos in an election year that is already fraught, into one of positive change. Clinton has the perfect combination of temperament and skill-set to make an outstanding justice.
He can’t. The rules were changed in 2014. Read this:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/is-a-recess-appointment-to-the-court-an-option/
Thanks for the piece! That then leaves the last option, which is to offer “a nominee so universally admired that it would be too embarrassing for the Senate not to respond.” I think it would be exceedingly difficult for even these Republicans to say no.
Michelle would be a nice pick.
The longer the GOP senate blocks a nomination process, avoiding hearings and votes, the longer this will work against them as it lays bare their naked exclusionary use of democracy and the constitution. They intend to strip democracy of the power to solve our problems, as we see them so often do by voter suppression. This is merely a high level of voter suppression and denial of debate and discourse to control and exploit. We and democracy win when we come together participate, we need not fear a protracted debate. We need only worry if we do not show up to the battle of ideas and the process of democracy. A recess appointment is a last resort. A nomination of HRC would undermine our the founded contention that she is beholden to wall street and oligarchy. I do not trust the fractured and chimera like nature of HRC as a Justice any more than I trust her as president except in specific partisan topics with which agreement is shared. It would neither rescue the Democratic party nor the nation from the work ahead of truly unifying behind the principles of the Sanders campaign to rid us of the corrupting influence of great sums of money on the democracy.