Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), architect of the 2013 government shutdown, told reporters in Colorado on Wednesday that he may be prepared to shut down all confirmations to the Supreme Court of the United States.
As the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reports, Cruz said that there is “certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices,” in response to a question about whether a Republican-controlled Senate should refuse to confirm anyone nominated by a President Hillary Clinton.
As ThinkProgress argued shortly after McCain made his statement, a threat to confirm no one to the Supreme Court is effectively a threat to destroy the Court itself. Unlike elected officials, who can claim a mandate from their own democratic legitimacy, an unelected judge’s “legitimacy flows from their obedience to a written text and the knowledge that they were selected in a fair and constitutional process.” If the Republican Party insists that it shall be the only party that gets to place new justices on the Supreme Court, that taints the aura of fairness that surrounds the Court. Litigants cannot reasonably be expected to follow the decisions of a rigged bench.
There is precedent for a Congress that simply refused to allow a president to place new justices on the Supreme Court. This extraordinary tactic was used to keep a white supremacist president from effectively undoing the new birth of freedom thousands of Americans paid for in blood.
And now, Republicans are deploying that very same tactic, because they don’t want a moderate liberal like Merrick Garland to replace the arch-conservative Scalia.
https://thinkprogress.org/ted-cruzs-dangerous-and-offensive-new-threat-12089f0763ac#.127fmesh0
As the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reports, Cruz said that there is “certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices,” in response to a question about whether a Republican-controlled Senate should refuse to confirm anyone nominated by a President Hillary Clinton.
As ThinkProgress argued shortly after McCain made his statement, a threat to confirm no one to the Supreme Court is effectively a threat to destroy the Court itself. Unlike elected officials, who can claim a mandate from their own democratic legitimacy, an unelected judge’s “legitimacy flows from their obedience to a written text and the knowledge that they were selected in a fair and constitutional process.” If the Republican Party insists that it shall be the only party that gets to place new justices on the Supreme Court, that taints the aura of fairness that surrounds the Court. Litigants cannot reasonably be expected to follow the decisions of a rigged bench.
There is precedent for a Congress that simply refused to allow a president to place new justices on the Supreme Court. This extraordinary tactic was used to keep a white supremacist president from effectively undoing the new birth of freedom thousands of Americans paid for in blood.
And now, Republicans are deploying that very same tactic, because they don’t want a moderate liberal like Merrick Garland to replace the arch-conservative Scalia.
https://thinkprogress.org/ted-cruzs-dangerous-and-offensive-new-threat-12089f0763ac#.127fmesh0
Now because the democrats don't get the opportunity to pack a Roosevelt Court in order to circumvent both common and constitutional law from the bench. THE SKY IS FALLING AGAIN?