The Senate Filibuster of SCOTUS Nominees...

Over the coming days, you will certainly here about the "historic" "unjust" "revolutionary" "destructive" actions of Senate Republicans to follow the precedent of Harry Reid and Senate Democrats and eliminate the filibuster, this time extending it to President Trump's SCOTUS nominee.

A few points I wanted to share:

- I will be the first to say I am not wild about the evisceration of the Senate rules for partisanship. That is foolish and short sighted - it was when Reid did it, and it is the same when McConnell is going to do it.

- That said, I do not believe that President Trump could have nominated ANY conservative jurist that would have received the 60 votes necessary for cloture.  I think the Democrats are still fuming (and somewhat rightly so) that they did not get to put President Obama's nomination on the Court, so any nominee for that open seat was likely going to be met with objection (apart from one personally chosen my Sen. Schumer, which he graciously volunteered to do).

- I think that the Senate should have confirmed Merrick Garland – I said it then and I will say it now. He certainly deserved a hearing and a vote.  Unfortunately, Sen. McConnell plays a wicked hand of poker, as his political gamble could have very easily backfired for conservatives, dramatically shifting the balance of the Court for the foreseeable future (presumably, a Clinton administration would have withdrawn the Garland nomination and installed someone much more ideologically left-of-center than Garland). But, as many have said since, elections have consequences. The Republicans won, and the outrageous gamble paid off.

- I am not so naive to think that SCOTUS seats are not political or partisan - they have been since the very first nominees to the Court. But I also believe that a qualified jurist nominee should be confirmed, unless there is something so egregious that prevents the nomination. Judge Gorsuch is certainly qualified, and at least as qualified as Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. And as partisan as those nominations were (both are as left leaning as Gorsuch is to the right), neither were filibustered and both were confirmed.

- And as much as I generally disagree with the stances and politics of Sen. Michael Bennett from the great State of Colorado, I am pleased that he has decided not to join his fellow Democrats in the filibuster against a nominee from his home state. I didn’t think he had it in him, but I am proud (and pleasantly surprised) that he did.  Ironically, there are commercials running on TV that claim the exact opposite, so they need to get their facts straight.

- Lastly, I would call on those Senators planning on using the filibuster for this nominee to reconsider. It is YOU that are setting a precedent that will be impossible to walk back and change. I know that these words will not reach anyone, but I would be remiss if I did not say it.

Also, to demonstrate that I actually get news from somewhere besides Breitbart and Fox News, I wanted to share this article from The Atlantic that discusses the actual impact changing the Senate rules will have.

Buckle up – it should be an interesting few days…