sea legs.jpgRepublicans had difficulty getting sea legs when Supreme Court justice David Souter announced 3 weeks ago he was retiring. But they may – just may – be abandoning the frustrating cordiality not returned to them on SC nominees. Reported the Huffington Post May 18:

The rationale is gradually being put in place for Republicans to mount a filibuster of Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
On Sunday, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, suggested that the country had moved to a place “in which there is not as much deference”… given to the President’s Supreme Court nominees as in the past. Earlier, he refused to “rule out” using a filibuster.

Former Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie wrote in the Washington Post, May 20…

In 1993 and ’94, Republicans voted overwhelmingly to confirm Clinton’s nominees on the long-held premise that presidential elections have consequences, and one of the most important of them is a president’s prerogative to fill Supreme Court vacancies….
In 2005, Senate Democrats – notably then-Sens. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton – argued for a different standard, one based on how they thought the nominee might rule on important cases in the future. On these grounds, all 3 opposed both Roberts and Alito….
In leading the White House efforts to confirm Roberts and serving as a “sherpa” for Alito’s confirmation, I argued strongly along with many Senate Republicans that Democrats would be mistaken to change the historic standard for confirmation to the nation’s highest court. Since they did, however, those same Senate Republicans would be mistaken if they didn’t apply that same standard to President Obama’s nominee.
Republicans cannot accept the premise that it’s okay for liberals to vote against Supreme Court nominees who believe in a strict constructionist judicial philosophy but not okay for conservatives to vote against those who embrace empathetic activism on the bench.

The Judicial Confirmation Network has composed ads targeting Obama’s suspected frontrunners. You can have a bit of fun and vote on JCN’s site on which of these is the worst liberal activist.
So far Sotomayor is winning, but I’m partial to Diane Wood, who defied the very body to which she aspires by refusing – not once, which is bad enough, but incredibly twice – to drop the NOW vs Scheidler case.
Elena Kagan

Sonia Sotomayor

Diane Wood

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