Monday Fix: Best thing that happened to Democrats and Republicans
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Version 0 of 1. They have a chance to swing the balance of the Supreme Court from conservative to liberal after the death of Scalia, one of the most conservative justices on the court. It’s unlikely that Obama will get a preferred liberal nominee through the Republican-controlled Senate, so at worst the court will be deadlocked 4-4 on contentious issues such as the Affordable Care Act and affirmative action while Obama and the Senate duke it out over a replacement. That would leave rulings from lower courts in place, and legal scholars have pointed out that the lower courts are largely blue. The best case scenario for Democrats is in reach, too: The prospect of changing the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court can be leveraged to increase their chances that, come January, they control the Senate, the White House and, possibly, who becomes the next Supreme Court justice. They have a chance to block Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court. Republicans in the Senate can easily drag out the nominating process, which usually takes two to three months, until this summer, when they can argue that the election for a new president is so close that Americans would be better served by waiting for the next president to nominate a successor. Both sides are, of course, gambling that the next president will be from their party. Republicans have an uphill battle to hang onto the Senate, but if they can do that and gain control of the White House, they could ostensibly keep intact the conservative-leaning ideological makeup of the court. Even if the court remains deadlocked 4-4, cases such as whether the president's executive actions on immigration can go forward or whether abortion clinics in Texas could close would be upheld by lower courts that have decided in Republicans’ favor. — Amber Phillips of the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals have a majority of Democratic appointees. That means a 4-4 split on the Supreme Court would uphold the rulings from these, mostly blue courts. The number of days that, under normal circumstances, the nomination and confirmation process of a justice usually takes Age of the oldest member of the Supreme Court, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. |