The case for all-out war against Gorsuch (The Week)
Senate Democrats are wobbling on whether to filibuster President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch. Politico reports that at least seven conservative Democratic senators favor an open vote for Gorsuch, while others (including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer) are fretting about whether they should risk appearing obstructionist. Maybe, they wonder, Democrats should just try to preserve the filibuster for a later, even more conservative nominee.
This line of thinking is everything wrong with the Democratic Party.
While Senate Democrats have the numbers to sustain a few defections, they absolutely must filibuster Gorsuch, or any other nominee Trump dredges up out of the Republican swamp, both as a matter of principle and if they want to have a chance in the 2018 midterms.
The most important fact to keep in mind is that this is a stolen seat, as Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) rightly says. Supreme Court justices have retired or died in the final year of a presidential term on numerous occasions, and presidents still got their nominees through — including President Reagan. Blocking a nominee for an entire year in the hope that the next president will be from the other party, as Senate Republicans did with Merrick Garland, has literally never happened before. Indeed, Obama almost certainly could have recess-appointed him, if he weren't such a hesitant compromiser.
Yet that norm is now established. No longer will any president get to fill a Supreme Court seat unless his or her party also controls the Senate. Just listen to Republican senators like John McCain and Ted Cruz, who were promising to hold the seat open throughout Hillary Clinton's entire presidency when it appeared she was going to win. Since Republicans do control the Senate, Gorsuch is going through no matter what. The filibuster will stand until the first instant it impedes the Republican agenda, and then it will be killed. As Jonathan Chait argues, you might as well stand up to Trump's nominee now, and force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to own the consequences of jamming Gorsuch into the stolen seat.
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http://theweek.com/articles/677425/case-allout-war-against-gorsuch?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=02_02_17-article_4-677425