Republicans are being consistent; they consistently argue in favor of whatever will help them through the current moment. Democrats of course are high-minded and principled and so this time around they will stick to their 2016 principle that a Supreme Court nominee should be voted on as soon as one is nominated by the President.
No. In 2016 the Republicans and Democrats disagreed over what the proper course of action is when a president nominates a supreme court justice replacement in the final year of their term. Republicans argued that it's proper and traditional to wait until after the election and let the election winner select a nominee to be the new justice; Democrats argued that it's proper and traditional to allow the current president to select a nominee to be the new justice.
Republicans won that argument.
The fact they won the argument doesn't mean the Republicans were right about what the policy was prior to 2016 or what the policy should have been in 2016. But it does mean that a precedent was set and that when a supreme court opening comes up during a presidential election year the policy we are now supposed to follow is to wait on the submission of a nominee until after the election so that the election winner can make the selection.
There are basically 2 possibilities: the Republicans were
wrong in 2016 when they argued it's proper and traditional to wait, or the Republicans were
right in 2016 when they argued it's proper and traditional to wait. Which do you think it is? And, more importantly, which do Republicans now think it is?
If the Republicans still think what they claimed then is
right, then the path forward is simple: we continue doing it that way. No nomination should be considered and voted on in the senate until the 2020 election winner is able to make the selection.
But if the Republicans now think what they claimed in 2016 is
wrong, there are several choices for how to proceed forward.
(a) The simplest is to admit they were wrong in 2016, apologize for their error then, but acknowledge that a precedent was set in 2016 to wait until after the election and that's now the established rule. If at some future time agreement can be reached to change the policy back to what it used to be that's fine, but until and unless such agreement is reached we continue following the 2016 precedent of waiting. That's a reasonable course which honorable people of both parties should be comfortable with.
(b) Or, there's an alternative honorable course Republicans could take if they now feel that setting a policy of delaying the selection was a mistake which needs to be remedied and that we need to return to the policy of allowing the current president to select the nominee. That's to admit they were wrong in 2016, acknowledge that Merrick Garland's nomination deserved to be voted on, and agree to work with Democrats on addressing and fixing that mistake.
It's too late for Merrick Garland to be considered for the seat Alito left, since that seat has already been filled. But if the GOP now feel that Barack Obama had a right to select a nominee to fill Alito's seat and his selected nominee, Merrick Garland, was improperly denied a vote, then they should pressure Donald Trump to submit Merrick Garland as the nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and refuse to accept any other nominee from Trump until Garland's nomination has been submitted, discussed and voted on. Once that's been done, there should be no problem returning to previous tradition of letting the sitting president submit a nominee for consideration even during election years -- although, of course, it will likely be quite a ways in the future before the matter comes up again unless another of the current justices dies or resigns before November.
(c) A third path would be for Republicans simply to ignore the wrongness of what they did in 2016 -- denying a Democratic president the chance to fill a supreme court vacancy which occurred during their term in order to steal the opportunity for their party to fill the seat instead -- and simply return to letting the sitting president submit nominees for consideration even in the final year of their presidential term now that the sitting president is a Republican. But obviously it would be very hypocritical and dishonorable on the part of any Republican who chose to follow such a path.
That kind of partisan behavior presents a serious threat to our cooperative democratic form of government, which relies on members of congress putting country above party. There is an obligation for honorable politicians to call out and oppose such partisan behavior when it's as blatant as this and when it's on a matter as important as this. It would be neither
high-minded nor
principled for Democrats to go along with such a blatantly partisan attempt to subvert the way supreme court justices are approved, and I am surprised you would use those words to describe it. I hope you weren't serious, and that was simply an attempt at humor on your part.
