> But it's similarly splitting hairs to say that the party of the president makes meaningful difference as well.

Of course it does! The Constitution splits the nomination/confirmation process between two political branches. The process is supposed to be political!

You have really insightful legal comments here most of the time but anyone supporting Mitch's 100% hypocritical stance on this is laughable.

He will do whatever it takes to hold on to his minority power. He did it with Obama and has already hinted ~2 hours after RBG died he'll happily do a 180 on his previous position this time around when he has the chance.

It’s absolutely hypocritical, and if the Democrats has been in the same position they’d do the exact same thing.

Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn't - time will tell.

But the argument that "it's OK for us to do it, because they would" seems a bit thin.

It's OK to loot this store because if I don't someone else will...

And it's OK to do anything I like as long as I can point a finger and say "but he'd do it too"

So, yeah, this is a textbook case of hipocrasy, but being hipocratic doesn't matter as long as we win.

In this situation in 2020, I agree, they would. In 2016? I don’t see the reasoning that they would have.

The reality of the situation is that in the US one party constantly pushes boundaries and test limits. The other party then adjusts to attempt to counteract that. Yet it’s sold as “both sides are just as bad as each other”

Democrats literally threatened to pack the Supreme Court so they could get expansive interpretations of the Constitution to push through the new deal. They are constantly attacking structural features of our government and institutions, whether it’s chipping away at federalism or creating fourth branches of government out of whole cloth.

> Democrats literally threatened to pack the Supreme Court so they could get expansive interpretations of the Constitution to push through the new deal. They are constantly attacking structural features of our government and institutions ...

Court expansion hasn't happened yet, but if it does:

1. Them's the rules; sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. (Or: Live by the rules, die by the rules.) (Or: Karma's a bitch, ain't it?)

2. What you call the "structural features of our government and institutions" are meant to serve the people, not vice versa. It's idolatry to put those features on a pedestal and declare them to be immutable. Presuming adequate protection of genuine minority rights, it's not illegitimate for a democratically-elected government to use lawful means to try to restructure existing institutions in pursuit of the majority's felt political needs.

The fact that you have to go back nearly 100 years to come up with an example kind of proves my point.

This is complete nonsense. Your comments on this subject seem to be 100% ideological not based in reality unlike most of your other grounded legal arguments on other subjects.

I’m curious which parties you’re referring to. Conservatives are called that literally because they want to conserve something from the past.

In this case, the left is marching forward with all sorts of new policies—often ostensibly to deal with a societal problem, but causing more problems because the policy does not derive from first principles.

They wouldn't, because they never would have blocked a GOP nominee in the first place for 293 days.

> The Constitution splits the nomination/confirmation process between two political branches. The process is supposed to be political!

The founders explicitly said that they didn't intend the system to be partisan, and indeed warned against the dangers of partisanship.

Of course they themselves formed parties a few years later. They weren't as wise as everyone seems to think.

The power is split across branches, not political parties. And I think you're forgetting that Senators are elected in by the people.

I see a common irrational theme of "let's change the rules because they didn't work out in my favor this time". I don't understand the logic behind this.

Senators originally (prior to 1914) were not directly elected by their constituents... the founders set up the Senate to be the more "responsible" "Upper House"and were set to represent the interests of each state and appointed by each state's democratically elected Governor. The intention of senators having longer terms (6 years vs 2 years for House members) in addition to being appointed by each state's Governor and state legislature was so Senators would not be as directly affected by electoral politics and would be forced to actually work together. I think the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was in retrospect a pretty horrible decision that has not added much democratic value to our system.

Well look at how governors have been handling the pandemic. Most of them seem completely one sided in terms of their response, unwilling to compromise and stretching the limits of their power. There isn't a "let's see how it's working and adapt based on new information" mindset, it's a "my way or the highway" mindset. For example, I live in PA and our governor's orders were recently found to be unconstitutional[1].

If anything, governors should have less power, not more. Decisions should be made on a smaller scale, states are too big for a one-size-fits-all model. And I certainly wouldn't want governors hand picking our senators.

[1] - https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/14/pennsylvania-j...

Unsurprising, given the judge who found the orders unconstitutional was a Trump appointee. The past three and a half years Republicans have spent packing the courts seriously hurts the credibility of the legislative branch.

As an aside, Breitbart is one of the least trustworthy sources, and citing it does not help your argument.

Do you think the orders aren't unconstitutional?

Details on why you don't like the judge and which media outlet I referenced (i honestly just googled the story and grabbed the first one I saw) digresses from my point. And fyi once you digress from the main topic and shift to sub-aspects (without actually addressing the main point), it usually means you're arguing in bad faith, or your cognitive dissonance is kicking in. It's a mechanism used by closed-minded and stubborn people...Food for thought.

I'm not digressing from your point, I'm directly rebutting it. You claimed that your governor is abusing his power, offering as a supporting argument a ruling that his orders are unconstitutional by an ostensibly neutral third party. I'm attacking your supporting argument by calling the neutrality of that third party into question.

My own opinion is that the orders are constitutional.

> I see a common irrational theme of "let's change the rules because they didn't work out in my favor this time".

IMO they didn't work out in anyone's favor. Our country is a mess, and the majority of people dislike both of the 2 major ruling parties.

Branch, not party. Executive and Legislative.

> Branch, not party.

I can read. I was referring to "The process is supposed to be political!" And by political, the implication is partisan, because otherwise it would be true by definition, and thus an uninteresting claim not worthy of ending in an exclamation point.

Political doesn’t mean partisan. It means characterized by political considerations, rather than rules. Partisanship is one aspect of politics which the founders wanted to avoid. But they always contemplated that the Senate majority and Presidency might disagree for political reasons.

Sure — and if the Mitch McConnell's objection to Merrick Garland's nomination had been political, it would have been one thing. But it was nakedly partisan: he refused to consider any justice that Obama would nominate, with no real reasoning beyond "we want a Republican to have a chance to fill this vacancy".

> they always contemplated that the Senate majority and Presidency might disagree for political reasons.

They did. The danger to the country is actually when they agree.

What happened here is that the Senate refused to compromise, and simply put the government in a holding pattern until they could get a more "agreeable" executive in office. Is that the way separation of powers was intended to work? I think not.