Talking Points RE: The Supreme Court Vacancy

[Tom Rinaldo]

When Republicans refused to schedule a confirmation hearing for President Obama's nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy in February 2016, they did so claiming it was then too close to a presidential election for the Senate to act on that vacancy. In February 2016, not only had neither the Democrats nor Republicans picked their 2016 presidential candidates yet, but there wasn't even clarity on which candidates would likely be chosen by either party. Now, with election day less than six weeks off, not only are the 2020 presidential candidates already chosen, but actual voting in the 2020 general election has already begun.

When President Obama named a nominee for the Supreme Court in 2016, he did so while serving his second term in office. That is significant because Obama had by then already faced voters twice. The American people saw how President Obama handled the duties of his office after he was elected in 2008, with no prior presidential track record, and based on that record they reaffirmed their choice of him as our leader in 2012, providing him with a clear and informed mandate. President Trump has not faced the voters since his actual performance could be evaluated by them. Not only that, but in Trump's one and only election his opponent won the popular vote by nearly three million votes. By way of contrast President Obama won the 2012 popular vote by almost five million votes.

Additionally, since Gallop began tracking presidential approval ratings going back to 1937, Donald Trump is the only U.S. President who has never reached a 50% or higher approval rating while in office. According to Wikipedia, Trump's highest approval rating was 49%, his average approval rate over his presidency is 40%, and his most recent (7/23/20) rate was 41%. By way of contrast Obama reached a high of 67% approval, had an average of 47.9% approval, and left office in January 2017 with an approval rate of 59%. President Obama's 2016 Supreme Court pick came backed by a popular mandate that President Trump's last second attempt to fill a SC vacancy can not even remotely approach.

President Trump is one of only three American Presidents who have been impeached in office. And though he, like the two others before him, failed to be convicted by the U.S Senate, Donald Trump is the only impeached United States President who failed to win total backing from Senators of his own party during the conviction vote. Of greater current relevancy however is this: A number of Republican Senators during Donald Trump's Senate trial used, as an argument not to impeach Trump, the fact that 2016 was a presidential election year and that it should be left to the nation's voters, with national elections still nine months distant, and not the Senate to determine whether Donald Trump should remain in office. If that argument was strong enough to not hold Donald Trump accountable in the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors, it is powerful enough to deny a Senate confirmation hearing for a life time appointment to the Supreme Court by a president who awaits the voters verdict on him to be rendered in less than six weeks.

Finally, Donald Trump is already calling on Federal Courts to determine the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election through the premature halting of vote counting in that election. Given that stance, it is an irreconcilable conflict of interest to allow Donald Trump to, at this late hour, choose who will next be seated on the United states Supreme Court.

[consider_this]

1. Many great points, especially...

this one:

Of greater current relevancy however is this: A number of Republican Senators during Donald Trump's Senate trial used, as an argument not to impeach Trump, the fact that 2016 was a presidential election year and that it should be left to the nation's voters, with national elections still nine months distant, and not the Senate to determine whether Donald Trump should remain in office. If that argument was strong enough to not hold Donald Trump accountable in the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors, it is powerful enough to deny a Senate confirmation hearing for a life time appointment to the Supreme Court by a president who awaits the voters verdict on him to be rendered in less than six weeks.

and this:

Finally, Donald Trump is already calling on Federal Courts to determine the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election through the premature halting of vote counting in that election. Given that stance, it is an irreconcilable conflict of interest to allow Donald Trump to, at this late hour, choose who will next be seated on the United states Supreme Court.

[ooky]

2. All good reasons to let the next President choose the judge.

Another one is that all the Republicans talking points are a load of bull.

This is all about McConnell's treachery. He started this shit by blocking Obama's nominees when he was the minority leader. Harry Reid had to use the nuclear option to get anyone confirmed. Everything else that followed is all bullshit as McConnell has made up the rules as he goes. What a colossal dickhead.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Hopefully someone with a little more time than I have right now...

...can dig up quotes and video clips from some of the Republican Senators who went on record during the Impeachment trial saying that impeachment during a Presidential election year was inappropriate and usurped the rightful power of voters to make the important decision whether Trump deserved to serve four more years. And yet they don't want to allow the voters six more weeks to weigh in on whether Donald Trump can seat a SC Justice who could serve up to four more decades on that Court. I believe Lamar Alexander was one of them, but there were others.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Senator Lamar Alexander

From his formal statement explaining why he would not vote to convict and remove Donald Trump from office at Trump's impeachment trial (emphasis mine):

“It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday...

...“Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.”
https://www.wate.com/news/national-world/sen-lamar-alexanders-full-statement-on-impeachment-trial-witnesses/

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Senator Ben Sass:

Benn Sasse on convicting Trump in the Senate vs allowing the voters to decide if he should remain in office:


Let the voters render their verdict on Election Day
https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/federal-politics/sasse-on-impeachment-let-the-voters-render-their-verdict-on-election-day/article_e4d83cf6-5472-5ba1-a482-7d2d2329d256.html

"It's clear that the president had mixed motives in his decision to temporarily withhold military aid from Ukraine," Sasse said. "The line between personal and public was not firmly safeguarded."

But a question that senators needed to weigh in making their decision, he said, was what would be in the best interest of "the long-term civic health of the country."

"Will America be more stable in 2020 if the Senate — nine months from Election Day 2020 — removes the president?" he asked.

That, he suggested, would be "setting the nation on fire" and leaving America even more divided than it is today."


So, Sasse thought the Senate should stay out of it and let the voters decide in November, at that point 9 months away, whether Trump should remain President, but now the Senate should allow him to make a life time appointment to the Supreme Court before the public gets the chance to remove him with less than 6 week until that election?

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. I have time for one more. Senator Shelley Moore Capito:

“Reviewing this evidence and listening to counsel on both sides, I do not believe the House proved an offense that would justify the grave step of overturning the 2016 election and taking away from West Virginians the ability to decide for themselves in the 2020 election"