Trump and McConnell are hell-bent to put another corporatist on the Court. Schumer, himself a corporatist, will be all talk no action and it will happen. Presuming Biden wins, packing the court up to fifteen members is a fine option, I'd do it, but Biden, also a corporatist, will not.
Because of the dynamics, Biden, if elected, will oversee the biggest split of the Democratic party since the Clintons took it into the corporatist camp. Bernie was only a warning shot across the bow. It will be an inner-party civil war.
The
death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will almost certainly transform the
remaining weeks of the campaign — but also has the potential to reshape
constitutional government in the United States.
Ginsburg’s
death from cancer, 46 days before the presidential election, comes four
years after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spent nearly a year
blocking a vote on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Barack Obama appointed Garland, a moderate judge on the D.C. Circuit
Court, for the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia in
February 2016.
Shortly
after Scalia died, McConnell put out a statement. “The American people
should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court
Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a
new president,” said the Kentucky Republican. The result was a
historically unprecedented blockade.
[...]
The
stakes in 2020 are entirely different. A justice appointed by Trump
would likely solidify the court’s conservative majority at 6-3 and end
Chief Justice John Roberts’s role as an institutionalist swing vote.
This would put Roe v. Wade and other high-court decisions
cherished by the left and broadly supported in public polling at risk of
being overturned. It also occurs only weeks before November at a moment
when over 100,000 Americans have already cast their ballots and with
McConnell’s precedent from only four years ago looming over proceedings.
Within
minutes of Ginsburg’s death being announced, Schumer put out the exact
same statement that McConnell did after Scalia’s death in February
2016. However, unlike McConnell, Schumer is not the majority leader.
McConnell
announced in a statement Friday night, “President Trump’s nominee will
receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” effectively
dismissing any precedent from four years ago. [...]
Assuming
McConnell holds the remainder of his caucus together to jam through a
nominee under those circumstances, it would cause a constitutional
crisis. The appointment of a Supreme Court justice under these
circumstances would transform ending the filibuster and expanding the
size of the Supreme Court from a niche issue on the left to a
fundamental litmus test.
Already, Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts made clear in
a statement on Twitter, “Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme
Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when
Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the
filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.”
In
other words, if Joe Biden is elected and Democrats take control of the
Senate, there could be a constitutional clash of a magnitude not seen
since the New Deal, when a right-wing Supreme Court took on Franklin
Delano Roosevelt before eventually buckling under the threat of
court-packing.
Markey, a progressive is clear. But is Biden?
Biden likely would prefer Trump-McConnell to do the dirty work, having it to run against, and relieving him of any burden of flak over his naming a corporatist, which is precisely what he'd do. As a corporatist, happy with one more on Court, similar to Schumer. The pair of Biden and Schumer would resist, not assist the expansion of the Court to better reflect the mood of the people as against the mood of the wealthy donor class which has for years maintained class warfare against the people.
So, Trump-McConnell get their cramdown, Biden gets off the hook, somebody wins the election, and things will not fundamentally change.
Somebody even said that as if a campaign promise to wealth.
Meanwhile the Lincoln Project huffs and puffs, and Bloomberg spends.
Great Again? A very difficult target, but greater would be the Lincoln Project being laughed at as all show without substance, buying a voice if there is a Biden win, and no matter how much Bloomberg spends he has left over more wealth than any single human needs.
Status quo Joe will not put out a strong objection to Trump-McConnell further moving the Court to corporation friendly lengths, but he and his people will propagandize it as if they truly objected to a stronger corporatist tilt happening to the Court. All show. No conscience. Not having to do the dirty work post election by letting Trump-McConnell now or during the lame duck period do their thing absent Biden having to participate.
Harris will agree. Whatever, she'll agree. You don't immensely upgrade a career by starting to make waves when never doing so previously but always taking the easy way. She'd agree with that, . . .
UPDATE: The betting here, Trump-McConnell's choosing? Another Catholic. Bolster that Court majority via one more. Biden could live with that, yes/no? Over two terms it would entrench a status quo and we know how Biden values the status quo. It got him where he is, and he's never bitten the feeding hands of plutocrats or his Church.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s aides have continued asking around
for intel on what Biden will do, believing there’s likely only room in
the race for one of them.
Bloomberg suggested as much
himself when the two appeared together at the National Action Network
breakfast in Washington on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“Whatever
the next year brings for Joe and me,” Bloomberg said at the breakfast,
“I know we’ll both keep our eyes on the real prize, which is a Democrat
winning the White House in 2020 and getting our country back on track.” [The Atlantic - a year-and-a-half ago]
Perhaps Biden, if elected, would do largely what Bloomberg, if President, would do.
Mammon sets the course Biden sails. Mammon is the goal Trump embraces. This election, Mammon is going to come out okay.
--------------
FURTHER: As to who Trump may nominate, DailyMail in its gaudy fashion headlines:
Who will Trump pick to replace RBG? Frontrunner devout Catholic
Judge Amy Coney Barrett will battle it out with 20 others on the
President's Supreme Court shortlist including senators Ted Cruz and Tom
Cotton
President
Trump may have the chance to appoint another Justice to the Supreme
Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday
Earlier in September, Trump revealed his shortlist of 20 names
The current frontrunner is U.S. Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 48, a devout Catholic and pro-lifer
Trump's list includes three sitting senators: Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley
President Trump already knows who he wants to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, according to a report.
Trump told confidants he was “saving” Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the
seat last year during deliberations over who should replace retiring
Justice Anthony Kennedy, according to Axios.
“I’m saving her for Ginsburg,” Trump reportedly said about Barrett.
Barrett, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, was a
popular choice among conservatives at the time. The 47-year-old has
strong ties to her Catholic faith and signaled an openness to
overturning Roe v. Wade.
Ultimately, Trump’s pick, Brett Kavanaugh, was nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court in October.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life, is urging
President Donald Trump to “move quickly to nominate Judge Amy Coney
Barrett,” who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit, to fill the High Court’s vacancy.
[...] “We are confident that if appointed to the Supreme Court, Judge
Barrett would prove herself a trusted caretaker of the Constitutional
protections extended to every human person in America, including human
lives in the womb,” Foster said.
This might be Trump's Hail Mary. Barrett is the right faith for a Hail Mary. And those little embryos, each voting Trump . . . snatching victory . . .
Joe Biden Resisting Calls to Unveil List of Potential Court Picks
Drew Angerer/Getty
(AP) ATLANTA — Joe Biden is resisting calls
from President Donald Trump and even some fellow Democrats to release
his list of potential Supreme Court picks seven months after he pledged
to name the first Black female justice.
Some on the left suggest that outlining potential picks would help
Biden build enthusiasm in the final weeks of the campaign, particularly
after he already selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running
mate, making her the first Black woman on a major presidential ticket.
Trump, meanwhile, is eager to comb through a list to find possible
nominees who would bolster his false depiction of Biden as an extreme
liberal.
Trump helped insert the Supreme Court squarely into presidential
politics in 2016 by taking the unprecedented step of releasing a list of
potential nominees before he was elected, a move that helped rally the
conservatives who ultimately carried him to victory.
But some of Biden’s allies say a list won’t provide the same payoff
for him and could hurt him by distracting voters from Trump’s handling
of the coronavirus and give the president fuel to suggest Biden’s
choices are too far left.
“Why play into Trump’s hands?” asked Karen Finney, a prominent Black Democratic strategist.
Ms. Finney as quoted might have added, "Why do a list when Joe's happy with Barrett, or presumably so since he declines to interject anybody else's name."
Joe, the Ghost who walks. The anti-Trump, choosing to not offer himself as much more than that. Much as John Kerry ran as the anti-Bush.
FURTHER: Barrett's Wikipedia page - from Indiana, JD from Notre Dame. "Barrett was born and raised in New Orleans.
She is the oldest of seven children, with five sisters and a brother.
Her father, Michael Coney, worked as an attorney for Shell Oil Company;
her mother was a homemaker."
" At Notre Dame, Barrett served as an executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. In 1997, she graduated first in her class, which earned her the Hoynes Prize, the Law School's highest honor.[16]
"A hearing on Barrett's nomination before the Senate Judiciary Committee was held on September 6, 2017.[29] During Barrett's hearing, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein questioned Barrett about whether her Catholic faith
would influence her decision-making on the court, [...] Worried that Barrett would not uphold Roe v. Wade
given her Catholic beliefs, Feinstein followed Barrett's response by
saying, "the dogma lives loudly within you, and that is a concern".[31][32][33][34]"
" Several Republican senators came to Barrett's defense,[43] including Chuck Grassley,
who said, "Professor Barrett is a brilliant legal scholar who has
earned the respect of colleagues and students from across the political
spectrum. She's also a committed Roman Catholic and has spoken
passionately about the role that her faith plays in her life. This isn't
inconsistent with being a federal judge."[44]
-----------------
Biden, if elected, would be the nation's second Catholic president. However, Biden is no John Kennedy, by anyone's honest measure.
