Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats Got Played Yet Again

By Paul Blest  |  October 18, 2018 | 2:05pm
Congress

Last week, Chuck Schumer didn’t listen to Splinter, and agreed on a “deal” to allow the confirmation of 15 federal judges nominated by President Donald Trump in exchange for allowing Senate Democrats fighting for their re-election to go home and campaign, instead of just letting them miss the votes while safe Democrats stayed in Washington. And, what do you know: the Republicans fucked the Democrats—and more importantly, America—yet again.

The New York Times reports:

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee convened yet another hearing to consider still more conservative federal court nominees — while the Senate was technically in recess. Incensed Democrats boycotted the proceedings, but their empty chairs did not prevent candidates for the bench, such as Allison Rushing, 36, a social conservative nominated by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, from taking a crucial step toward confirmation.
[…]
Ms. Rushing is drawing protests from liberal advocacy groups who say her résumé is too thin for an appeals court nominee. She clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, before he became a Supreme Court justice, but is only 11 years out of law school and has never been a judge. If confirmed, she would become the youngest nominee to take the federal bench in more than 15 years.

“If there was ever any hope that after the Kavanaugh experience we could return to bipartisanship on the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was shaken this morning,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, told the Times.

Now it’s shaken? It wasn’t shaken when Lindsey Graham said, “You better watch out for your nominees”? Or when Orrin Hatch called it a “national disgrace” that Brett Kavanaugh was receiving mildly tough questioning over his involvement in an alleged sexual assault? Or when Ted Cruz called the whole thing “one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the United States Senate?”

Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon ably summed what happened up to the Times: “To me, it’s a sign that they didn’t just get stuffed in a locker here; they had their lunch money taken.”

If there’s anything that the Kavanaugh confirmation should have taught Senate Democrats, it’s that the Republicans are hell-bent on enacting their agenda, and have been wholly unconcerned with decorum and civility and all of the Senate’s unwritten rules for years. And as we’ve seen here, the Democrats’ repeated attempts to make peace with an alligator have once again backfired. One of these days, maybe, they’ll try something new.

 
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