Editorial Saving the Court From the Justice Minister

Still, it has led to renewed calls for the Senate to “do its job” and hold hearings on Merrick Garland’s nomination. If Democrats take the Senate majority, the more likely scenario is Republicans trying to filibuster any Clinton court nominee, and Dems doing away with that option.

A preemptive statement to block a presidential nominee’s Supreme Court picks would have been shocking a few years ago, Siegel said. Bloomberg News Senate reporter Steven Dennis talked about it with Nathan Hager in the Bloomberg 99.1 Washington newsroom. Clinton stated that she wants a Supreme Court that would stand up for the rights of women and LGBTs. There is one more issue that should be on everyone’s mind, though, and that is the Supreme Court. But if Clinton is elected and Republicans hold the Senate, I promise you that this will in short order become the almost universal position among Republicans.

An even number of Supreme Court justices, she said, increases the likelihood the Supreme Court will decline to hear cases or split 4-4 in a decision.

“I don’t think that’s shared by most Republican senators”, she said, predicting that the Scalia vacancy would be filled by the first part of next year. If the Republicans retain control of the Senate, that’s going to be a real question.

Following Senate Republicans’ unprecedented decision early this year to refuse consideration of Democratic President Obama’s nominee for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy on the grounds the next president should make that selection, an effort is now underway to refuse consideration of any nominee put forward if Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told Republican supporters Saturday he would try to keep a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court empty for four years if Hillary Clinton is elected president, a shift from his position in February.

But the current configuration of nine justices was set by Congress in 1869, and has remained that way ever since.

Owens argues the issue is much different than the GOP now blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland by President Obama.

Once elected, a justice serves until their death, retirement or conviction by the Senate.

But neither displayed any awareness that it is not the role of the Supreme Court to empathize with their fellow citizens.

Some conservatives consider the court’s prospective ideological change far more serious than loss of the presidency because it could end their hopes of barring abortions, reverse a recent trend toward restricting voting and allow gun control advocates to weaken some Second Amendment strictures.

If Senate Democrats win the majority and Chuck Schumer of NY becomes the majority leader, he could get around any blockade by removing the 60-vote threshold – a move known as the “nuclear option”. Writing in National Review, Minnesota law professor Michael Stokes Paulsen urged that the Supreme Court be reduced to six justices, explaining, “A smaller court means diminished judicial activism”, and Ilya Shapiro, of the Cato Institute, argued at The Federalist, “As a matter of constitutional law, the Senate is fully within its powers to let the Supreme Court die out, literally”. I did it in changing the rules of the Senate. “As at present, ties would yield no precedent but merely affirm lower courts’ rulings, with more limited effect”, Paulsen writes.

If he becomes leader and Clinton nominates, Schumer will have to manage the confirmation process and decide what to do if Republicans have enough votes to block the nominee.