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A comment on Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. Parent comment

Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by _qulr on Friday September 18, 2020 @09:34PM (#24524018)
I read it. The last time was over 150 years ago. Stop pretending this is a common occurrence.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by rayiner on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:12PM (#24524257)
It's not "common" because election-year Supreme Court vacancies where different parties control the Senate and Presidency are "not common." Republicans filibustered the nominee when LBJ sought to appoint Warren's replacement, leading to Warren not retiring. Then before that, Eisenhower, a Republican, got an election year nomination through by nominating a Democrat.

Then you're back in the 1800s. But we routinely look back to the 1800s to establish what is accepted practice in our government.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by jakelazaroff on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:25PM (#24524334)
> It's not "common" because election-year Supreme Court vacancies where different parties control the Senate and Presidency are "not common."

The number of qualifications needed in order to establish this "precedent" should tip you off that it's manufactured expressly to gain a political advantage.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by rayiner on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:31PM (#24524379)
The "qualifications" come from the appointment and confirmation process itself. The Constitution splits the job of filling Supreme Court vacancies between the two political branches of government. The fact that the process can become political where different parties control those two branches in an election year is utterly unsurprising.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by jakelazaroff on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:39PM (#24524430)
> The fact that the process can become political where different parties control those two branches in an election year is utterly unsurprising.

Correct, no one is actually surprised that Mitch McConnell abandoned the flimsy justification for his power grab the instant it outlived its use to him.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by zaroth on Friday September 18, 2020 @11:26PM (#24524719)
How is doing something exactly as it’s spelled out in the Constitution a “power grab”?

Alternatively, McConnell could have called the vote and the Republican majority in the Senate could have just voted it down.

Pre-nuclear option (an actual example of a power grab) even a minority of Senators could stop a nominee from getting through. The Republicans had a majority.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by _qulr on Friday September 18, 2020 @11:44PM (#24524800)
> Alternatively, McConnell could have called the vote and the Republican majority in the Senate could have just voted it down.

It can't be assumed that there wouldn't be Republican defections on a Garland confirmation. This is exactly the reason the majority leader refused to allow a vote. Even now, a number of Republican Senators have already "defected" and declared they won't vote on a nominee before the 2021 inauguration.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by aaronblohowiak on Saturday September 19, 2020 @12:17PM (#24528477)
They should have voted on it!
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by _qulr on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:42PM (#24524446)
> But we routinely look back to the 1800s to establish what is accepted practice in our government.

Routinely?

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by rayiner on Saturday September 19, 2020 @06:37AM (#24526480)
Yes. In fact, the usual presumption is the opposite. The closer in time to the adoption of the constitution we can trace some pattern (or in the case of a law to enactment of the law) that is more persuasive. If the generation that wrote the constitution engaged in this political gamesmanship (and they did) that strongly suggests they understood such conduct was permissible within the framework they created.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by _qulr on Saturday September 19, 2020 @07:29AM (#24526688)
> The closer in time to the adoption of the constitution we can trace some pattern (or in the case of a law to enactment of the law) that is more persuasive.

This sounds a lot like "originalism", which is controversial at best.

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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by woopwoop on Friday September 18, 2020 @11:07PM (#24524603)
Come on. Kennedy was confirmed in November of the year before the election.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by rayiner on Friday September 18, 2020 @11:21PM (#24524695)
On the third try to fill a vacancy that opened up in a non election year.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by woopwoop on Saturday September 19, 2020 @12:27AM (#24525060)
Again: come on.
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Re:Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died by jgwil2 on Friday September 18, 2020 @10:46PM (#24524481)
You, I and everyone else knows that this was a pretext, not a precedent. You can dress it up however you like, but the fact is that McConnell was going to do whatever he wanted no matter what.
[ Parent | on HN ]