2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

Status
Not open for further replies.
JoeMorgue said:
If one person can stop the process, either officially or just functionally, ti raises the question for me as to what all the other people are doing.

Why not have just McConnell and get rid of the rest of the Republicans if he's the final say?
Click to expand...

Because you can't have a strong Senate majority leader except by consensus of the Senate that that's how things work, and consensus of the majority that that's how their leader rolls.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
That might make sense - if the US system wasn't set up to allow a maximum of two years for a party to get anything done ... at BEST.
Either party has little incentive to give the other legislative accomplishments.
McConnell is Exhibit A, when he stated that his primary job was to make sure that Obama didn't get anything passed.
Click to expand...
I wish that were the way things were all the time. Sadly, I know it won't be. I'm just glad that the system actually allows this kind of gridlock to emerge from time to time.

Bottlenecks are fine if there is a scenario when the two sides MUST cooperate - but currently, one sides failure is the other's win. There is nothing but zero-sum calculation, hence nothing but gridlock.
Click to expand...
This is, to me, close to ideal. One advantage to this arrangement is that it exploits each party's own greed and will to power to act as a check on the ambitions of the other party. This is much better than systems like Communism that rely mainly on the ideological purity and good will of its governing groups, to prevent excesses of misrule.
 
theprestige said:
I wish that were the way things were all the time. Sadly, I know it won't be. I'm just glad that the system actually allows this kind of gridlock to emerge from time to time.
Click to expand...

That is an attitude based in nothing but luxury.
You are comfortable enough that passing or not passing laws will not seriously affect you.
But others depend on the government functioning. And there might come a time when you will, too.
 
theprestige said:
I wouldn't call it stealing the powers of the Executive branch.
Click to expand...

I couldn't think of a word that means stopping someone from doing what they're supposed to do. I thought it was "abrogate" but I looked it up and that's more like "evade". Regardless of terminology, presidents are supposed to nominate appointees.

I wouldn't have had the same objection if they'd held the hearings and voted against every nominee offered; announcing that none would be considered is a different thing entirely.
 
Belz... said:
Would you call it blocking the powers of the executive branch, a minor semantic change?
Click to expand...
Maybe?

After all, the three branches are supposed to check and balance each other. The whole point of having the Senate be a gatekeeper on nominations is to block the powers of the executive branch. Such blocks exist intentionally, as a feature, throughout our system of government.

So I'd say there's actually a major semantic change in this context, from "stealing" to "blocking".

I mean, the point was to prevent the president from doing his job by refusing to do theirs. That's cock-blocking if I ever saw it.
Click to expand...
It's totally cock-blocking. That's why I called it cock-blocking. But it's not in the sense that you seem to mean it.

They didn't prevent the president from doing his job. The president's job was to nominate, and the president did that. There's nothing Congress did, or could do, to prevent the President from doing his job.

And I don't agree that the Senate didn't do its own job. Refusing to bring a nominee to a vote is in my opinion well within the definition of the Senate doing its job. Largely because the Senate is constitutionally empowered to make its own rules about how it brings things to a vote, and it acted according to those rules in this case. So everybody did their job, and we ended up with a vacant seat on the SC bench, and that's okay.
 
theprestige said:
Maybe?

After all, the three branches are supposed to check and balance each other. The whole point of having the Senate be a gatekeeper on nominations is to block the powers of the executive branch. Such blocks exist intentionally, as a feature, throughout our system of government.

So I'd say there's actually a major semantic change in this context, from "stealing" to "blocking".


It's totally cock-blocking. That's why I called it cock-blocking. But it's not in the sense that you seem to mean it.

They didn't prevent the president from doing his job. The president's job was to nominate, and the president did that. There's nothing Congress did, or could do, to prevent the President from doing his job.

And I don't agree that the Senate didn't do its own job. Refusing to bring a nominee to a vote is in my opinion well within the definition of the Senate doing its job. Largely because the Senate is constitutionally empowered to make its own rules about how it brings things to a vote, and it acted according to those rules in this case. So everybody did their job, and we ended up with a vacant seat on the SC bench, and that's okay.
Click to expand...

What if the Senate decided to never bring any nominee to a vote, ever? Eventually the sitting SC justices would die or retire, and with no replacements possible the SC would cease to exist. Would you support the power of the legislative branch to extinguish the judicial branch in that fashion?
 
TragicMonkey said:
I couldn't think of a word that means stopping someone from doing what they're supposed to do.
Click to expand...

And that's the heart of our disagreement on this point. I don't agree that the Senate stopped the President from doing what he's supposed to do. The President is supposed to nominate. The President did that.

The President is not entitled to a Senate vote. He's entitled only to whatever process the Senate itself decides to use, within the limits set on the Senate by the constitution. The process the President got is within those limits, so nobody got stopped from doing anything they were supposed to do.

The outcome wasn't what you wanted, but it was a legitimate outcome.
 
TragicMonkey said:
What if the Senate decided to never bring any nominee to a vote, ever? Eventually the sitting SC justices would die or retire, and with no replacements possible the SC would cease to exist. Would you support the power of the legislative branch to extinguish the judicial branch in that fashion?
Click to expand...

What if the President decided to never nominate another justice?

What if every nominee decided to decline the nomination?

---

ETA: The Senate can't abolish the judiciary, which is more than just SCOTUS, and which is established independently by the Constitution.

However, I can and do support the power of the Senate to withhold its consent indefinitely until the bench is empty. Just as I can and do support the power of the President to accomplish the same thing.

In both scenarios, there is a higher authority and an obvious remedy, both of which would certainly come into play before all the current justices died of old age. But if the voting public were okay with an empty bench, consistently over the same time period in which several successive Presidents and Senators were working to that end, then I don't see the problem.

Other than the intractable problem of misrule that cannot really be solved, even by a liberal constitutional democracy.
 
Last edited:
theprestige said:
What if the President decided to never nominate another justice?
Click to expand...

I'd have just as big a problem with that. The three branches arrangement was designed with the assumption that they'd be functioning and staffed. That it's possible to sea-lawyer shenanigan to frustrate the arrangement doesn't make it acceptable, it just indicates holes left in the structure which ought to be patched.

What if every nominee decided to decline the nomination?
Click to expand...

That would be a different problem from wilful obstruction by refusing to act. But if it happens then a wider net for potential nominees could be pursued, and if absolutely no candidates were willing then perhaps a lower court judge could be moved up temporarily.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
no, it isn't.
Click to expand...
If we don't agree on this point, there's probably nothing productive we can say to each other on the topic.

I'll keep an eye out for any other topics where we might have enough baseline agreement to actually make a conversation worthwhile.

There are a lot of laws that need passing, including the budget.
Click to expand...
I believe there are very few laws that actually "need" passing - especially at the federal level. The budget is probably one of those few, but even at the worst of times, the federal government seems to be able to un-ass some kind of spending plan and some kind of money to spend on it.

You seem to be confusing "functional" with "optimized for my ideal outcomes". I'd love an optimal government, except that it would get a lot of things done. So I'm happy to settle for marginally functional.

Do you see any hope of Democrats, Republicans and Trump coming to an agreement on that?
Click to expand...
I hope they don't.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'd have just as big a problem with that. The three branches arrangement was designed with the assumption that they'd be functioning and staffed. That it's possible to sea-lawyer shenanigan to frustrate the arrangement doesn't make it acceptable, it just indicates holes left in the structure which ought to be patched.
Click to expand...
I'm saying the hole is already patched.

Or rather, the structure had no such hole in the first place. You're mistaking the dome of the roof for a hole in the ceiling.*

That would be a different problem from wilful obstruction by refusing to act.
Click to expand...
Agreed. We can discuss the propriety of the outcome without necessarily requiring that it happen by the same means in every case we're considering.

ETA: I agree that the outcome in this scenario arises from a different process than in the other scenario. I don't agree that the process in the other scenario constitutes "wilful [sic] obstruction".

But if it happens then a wider net for potential nominees could be pursued,
Click to expand...
And if the Senate stops confirming, a wider net for potential Senators can be pursued. Though, we already cast about the widest possible net, so we're in good shape there. The only thing missing right now are Senators looking to get elected on that issue, mainly because it's not an issue for most Americans right now.

You think that might change, and we might start electing Senators who will confirm, sometime between the death of the first SCJ and the death of the ninth?

and if absolutely no candidates were willing then perhaps a lower court judge could be moved up temporarily.
Click to expand...
Perhaps not. Judges can join SCOTUS only by nomination and confirmation. There's no provision anywhere for "promoting" a judge from another court temporarily.

(Technically, SC justices don't even have to be judges, or legal practitioners at all. "Promoting" a lower court judge is functionally and constitutionally no different from "promoting" an HVAC repairman to the court.)
---
*Metaphor, not analogy.
 
Last edited:
theprestige said:
I'm saying the hole is already patched.

Or rather, the structure had no such hole in the first place. You're mistaking the dome of the roof for a hole in the ceiling.*


Agreed. We can discuss the propriety of the outcome without necessarily requiring that it happen by the same means in every case we're considering.

ETA: I agree that the outcome in this scenario arises from a different process than in the other scenario. I don't agree that the process in the other scenario constitutes "wilful [sic] obstruction".


And if the Senate stops confirming, a wider net for potential Senators can be pursued. Though, we already cast about the widest possible net, so we're in good shape there. The only thing missing right now are Senators looking to get elected on that issue, mainly because it's not an issue for most Americans right now.

You think that might change, and we might start electing Senators who will confirm, sometime between the death of the first SCJ and the death of the ninth?


Perhaps not. Judges can join SCOTUS only by nomination and confirmation. There's no provision anywhere for "promoting" a judge from another court temporarily.

(Technically, SC justices don't even have to be judges, or legal practitioners at all. "Promoting" a lower court judge is functionally and constitutionally no different from "promoting" an HVAC repairman to the court.)
---
*Metaphor, not analogy.
Click to expand...

I disagree that a partially functioning system is unbroken compared to a fully functioning system. And I certainly disagree that it's necessary or desirable for a partially functioning system to break down further before it should be fixed.
 
JoeMorgue said:
If one person can stop the process, either officially or just functionally, ti raises the question for me as to what all the other people are doing.

Why not have just McConnell and get rid of the rest of the Republicans if he's the final say?
Click to expand...

He only has the final say because the other Republican senators agree with him having that power. If they decide they want to let something go forward he cannot stop them. Nancy Pelosi's in the same boat.
 
Brainster said:
He only has the final say because the other Republican senators agree with him having that power. If they decide they want to let something go forward he cannot stop them. Nancy Pelosi's in the same boat.
Click to expand...

That is reassuring. As alluded to above, there can't really be a fix for deliberate misrule, but if the problem is a bunch of bastards it's less serious than a single bastard in a position of overwhelming control.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I disagree that a partially functioning system is unbroken compared to a fully functioning system. And I certainly disagree that it's necessary or desirable for a partially functioning system to break down further before it should be fixed.
Click to expand...

I disagree that the system is broken, just because the Supreme Court occasionally has less than 9 sitting justices. I also disagree that the system is broken, just because the President can choose not to nominate, and the Senate can choose not to vote on confirmation.

But even if we stipulate that these are breakdowns, the system already has a fix. If the President won't nominate, replace the President. If the Senate won't confirm, replace the Senators. What else are you asking for?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom