2016 April 8^th

This morning the R-E carried a letter to the editor written by a badly misinformed writer, Fred Stoye. Mr. Stoye wants us to consider the “Biden Rule” which he suggests keeps any SCOTUS appointment from being advanced in the final year of a President’s term. After maligning the left for “having a hard time with history,” Stoye writes, “The left/Democrats used the same tactic in 1992 with the “Biden Rule” not agreeing to discuss or confirm a Supreme Court nominee until after a new President was in office.” Mr. Stoye apparently has his own “hard time with history.” The “left” could not possibly have used the same tactic in 1992 to avoid discussing a SCOTUS nominee because there was no SCOTUS nominee in 1992. The resignation of Thurgood Marshall in 1991 gave President G.H.W. Bush the opportunity to nominate Clarence Thomas to the court and that was the last opening on the court during Bush’s Presidency. Clarence Thomas was confirmed but by a narrow margin. No one lobbied against giving Thomas a hearing as has been the case with Merrick Garland.

Then Stoye writes, “I would like to know where you get your facts that the “majority” of Americans want the hearings to be held.” There are polls, Mr. Stoye, which provides just this information, but the properly applied conservatively correct blinders will keep you and the folks who don’t like the poll’s results quite safe! A CNN/ORC poll a week or so ago sampled about a thousand voters.  Of those who classified themselves as Republican 55% believed that the Senate should hold hearings. Two thirds of all those polled believed there should be hearings and 52% believed that Merrick Garland should be confirmed.

Now let’s look at the broader picture: While there were no nominations to SCOTUS by G.H.W. Bush that were condemned to limbo by a Democratic Senate, there were about 50 federal judgeships that had to sit there because the Democrats wouldn’t do their jobs. What we have is a politicized judiciary including SCOTUS that was not supposed to be politicized according to the founding fathers. What this means is obvious;if a President wants to nominate and get approval for federal judges, including a SCOTUS appointment, then he can expect to do so only if his party has control of the Senate. If the President’s party doesn’t have control of the Senate no SCOTUS appointments will be made. It seems that if SCOTUS must function with six, or seven, or eight members then our politicians seem quite willing to allow that to happen. They manage to conflate the benefit to their party with the welfare of the country. I have no idea how that can be stopped.