Democratic Senate Voting Ruled Unconstitutional

Democracy suffered a severe outbreak of checks and balances Thursday after Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer confirmed that Democrats would consider rejecting future Supreme Court nominees from President Donald Trump. The threat involves senators attending hearings, reviewing records and casting votes, a sequence Republicans described as an unprecedented seizure of power by the branch explicitly assigned that power.

Under the Democrats’ plan, judicial nominees would need support from a majority of the Senate rather than receiving lifetime appointments upon emerging from a Federalist Society luncheon. Schumer said Democrats would oppose nominees they consider unqualified or ideologically extreme, reviving the obscure constitutional practice known as not automatically giving the president everything he wants. “Chuck Schumer is trying to steal the Supreme Court with senators, hearings and votes, which is a disgrace because everybody knows advice and consent means applause and immediate confirmation,” Trump said, accurately summarizing the founding principle that constitutional language becomes optional when it inconveniences him.

Republicans warned that allowing a Democratic majority to exercise majority power would establish a dangerous precedent for representative government. Mitch McConnell’s 2016 refusal to consider Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland was entirely different, party officials explained, because Republicans controlled the Senate and therefore obstruction qualified as restraint. McConnell’s decision to confirm Amy Coney Barrett shortly before the 2020 election was also consistent with precedent, specifically the precedent that precedent expires whenever the votes are available.

Conservative groups have urged aging justices to retire while Republicans can still select their successors, protecting the nonpartisan judiciary from elections, voters and other partisan influences. Legal scholars noted that the Constitution gives the president authority to nominate judges and the Senate authority to confirm or reject them, but Republican scholars clarified that this provision applies only when Republicans have the votes.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.