Senate GOP Might Nix Filibuster For SCOTUS Nominees

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Uh, not quite sure why the republicans are doing this. Obama has a lot more ability to nominate a liberal replacement to whoever retires in the next two years if he only needs 5 republican votes instead of 14.

Eh, the Republicans aren't going to block a liberal replacement for Ginsburg, and not a single Republican will vote to confirm a liberal replacement for Kennedy/Scalia.

The bigger concern is if the Dems win the next election and narrowly get the Senate back. I doubt Scalia and Kennedy are holding on till 2020, to say nothing of 2024.

Yeah, it all depends on who you're replacing.  If Scalia is retiring, the Senate will only accept a stalwart conservative, or maybe a somewhat moderate one.  If Kennedy retires, then the GOP will vote for someone who's at most dead-center.  If Ginsburg retires, they'll probably let any competent liberal through.

Has a Democratic president ever been forced to nominate a "stalwart conservative"??  I know Republicans have nominated moderates/liberals, though perhaps unwittingly.

Why would a Democrat even go along with that?  They would sooner leave the seat empty.

I never said the President would nominate a stalwart conservative, only that this would be the only acceptable option to the Senate.

But yes, I believe Obama would choose a fairly conservative Scalia successor

What would make you believe that?  He's not going to throw away a chance to give his party control of the Supreme Court just so the Republicans will vehemently oppose his nominee instead of super vehemently opposing his nominee.  It may take two nominees or even three, but in the end the Republicans will fold.  They won't be able to get away with just calling for the seat to stay vacant or trying to dictate who replaces Scalia just because he was a Republican hack.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I expect if Obama wound up having to nominate a replacement for Scalia/Kennedy, both sides would be forced to compromise on a moderate placeholder. Essentially an older, well-respected centrist judge who would probably serve for no more than 20 years and would essentially be another Kennedy.

Judge Merrick Garland's name has been tossed around in the past and while he doesn't fit Obama's pattern of picking judges (62 years old, white male), he's the most likely candidate to fill that slot and avoid a crisis.

Kennedy is a Libertarian-flavored Republican hack.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Why should anybody imagine that the current ideological makeup of the Supreme Court is/should be set in stone? George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall, for God's sake. George W. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Why is it OK for the right to use nominations to ratchet the court in their direction and then deny any movement in the other direction by appeals to procedure and tradition or something?

I think they think they can get some good press out of this, still stop any nominees of Obama's they don't like that might crop up over the next two years, and can maybe ride that wave of bipartisan feeling to better results in 2016.

Because of the court's extreme ideological polarization in the last 20 years, a change of just Kennedy's seat to either the left or the right would set off a massive sea change in policy equivalent to one party winning supermajorities in congress with an ideological presidency. That huge of a change without an explicit democratic approval would arguably be illegitimate. Hence the concern. It wouldn't be a problem if the court were nonpartisan just interpreted the law as it is supposed to do, but it has become the third (and arguably most powerful) legislative branch in the current generation.

Were you making this argument when Bush appointed Alito to replace O'Connor?

Alito and O'Connor were still roughly on the same side of the fence. And many Dems did oppose Alito.

Including Obama. Who, it's worth mentioning, also opposed John Roberts to fill Rehnquist's seat, which indicates that he would never vote for a conservative justice even in a "Conservative seat". Which means by that standard, he got about as much courtesy from the GOP on nominees as he afforded as Senator.

Precisely. Besides, when Alito joined the court, the swing vote went from one moderate (O'Connor) to another (Kennedy). When Kennedy is no longer the swing vote, if he is not replaced by a moderate, then there may not be a consistent swing justice anymore, and power will clearly reside with one "bloc" or another.

There hasn't been a swing vote since O'Conner and even she's a bit of a stretch.  Least hackish member of the majority bloc =/= swing vote.