Supreme Court no place for partisan politics
By Ben Bright September 22, 2020
The recent passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the subsequent announcement by President Trump that he will immediately attempt to fill the vacancy, has brought forth yet another political firestorm. These controversies continue to weigh on the shoulders of the country and further divide us, continuing to pit Americans against each other. The long-term ramifications of a fast-tracked Supreme Court nomination and vote are far-reaching and are not beneficial to the American people.
Back in 2016, upon the unexpected death of Judge Antonin Scalia, the Senate refused to bring to a vote the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacant seat. The nomination occurred March 16 of that year, over seven months before the presidential election. However, Mitch McConnell held up the nomination stating, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
Here we are in late September, less than 40 days before another presidential election and McConnell and his fellow Republicans have done a complete turnaround. Now McConnell says, “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.” The hypocrisy of this situation is immense and is based strictly on partisan strategy with the Republicans attempting to pack the court ahead of a possible Trump defeat in November. The last time a one-term president filled three Supreme Court vacancies was when Herbert Hoover was in office in the early 1930s. Looking to the recent past, the last four presidents, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, only filled two vacancies on the highest court each.
By allowing a nomination and vote to move forward, the Senate Republicans are continuing their packing of the federal judiciary over the past four years. By the end of the year it is likely that between 250 and 300 federal court vacancies will be filled since Trump took office. To put this number in perspective, during the eight years that George W. Bush and Barack Obama were each in office, they appointed 327 and 329 Article III federal judges respectively. With these nominations over the past four years, all of the federal courts are going to have a distinct conservative feel for the next decades.
But the Supreme Court should not have this partisanship. The highest court is meant to be the final arbiter of the land and be above politics. It is kismet that Judges Scalia and Ginsburg are now forever linked together in the timing of their passings, as the two of them were longtime friends though they differed ideologically. Similarly, they each also received close to unanimous support in their confirmation votes in the Senate, with Scalia being confirmed 99-0 and Ginsburg 96-3. This bipartisan support has not been seen since, with no Supreme Court justice receiving more than 68 votes in their favor since McConnell took over as the Republican leader in the Senate in 2007.
It is likely that when you are reading this that a nominee for the vacant spot has been announced. And it is also likely that the Senate will quickly go through the process of holding judicial hearings and bring a vote to the floor of the Senate in an extremely fast-tracked process. Even in the cases of nominees such as Scalia and Ginsburg, whose qualifications gave them large bipartisan support, the time between their nomination and vote took longer than we currently have until the Nov. 3 election. Attempting to push through a nominee that will not have that same type of support is highly irresponsible.
Instead of their qualifications, federal court nominees from Trump have often been chosen based on where they will vote on particular issues, specifically the continued dismantling of the Affordable Care Act and the longtime abortion rights decision of Roe v. Wade. If the legacy of Scalia and Ginsburg give us anything, it should be that judges are chosen on their merit, bringing civility and fairness to the courts, not helping to further divide us.
Numerous Republican senators supported McConnell’s decision to not move forward with the nomination process of Garland in 2016. One of these Republicans, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, stated then, “I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations. This wouldn’t be unusual. It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.” If this was true to the Republicans then, it should be just as true today.
Ben Bright is chairman of the Washington County Democratic Committee.
