Reply #68: If Al Gore had been President, Citizens United wouldn't have happened. [View All]

[Jim Lane]

Gore would not have appointed Alito and Roberts. Almost certainly, Gore's appointees, like all the other Democratic appointees to the Court, would have taken the opposite view, and our side would have won by 6 to 3.

The issue of the extent to which Senators should oppose a Supreme Court nominee on purely ideological grounds is a complex one. For example, if your view is that Democrats should oppose any nominee with whom they have substantial disagreements, then you have to ask if Republicans should do the same. If so, then no President of either party could put someone on the Court without 60 ideological allies in the Senate.

What's not complex is that there was a huge difference between George Bush and Al Gore. Nader and his supporters should have the decency to acknowledge that their contrary statements in 2000 were wrong.