I noted here that a Democratic filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch would be stupid. Gorsuch is well qualified ("very well qualified," according to the distinctly non-conservative ABA); he has proven to be independent-minded (perhaps more so than I, strictly as an advocate, would prefer); and he is the least doctrinaire candidate that President Trump can be expected to nominate if, as seems probable, he has at least one more vacancy to fill.
None of this is exactly a secret; indeed, I think it's known all over town. Notwithstanding, the Democrats are now going to go forward with their filibuster.
They will thus unite Republicans while dividing their own party; pave the way for a more conservative Supreme Court than we probably otherwise had coming; paint themselves as dead-end partisan just when they had Mr. Trump in the corner; and possibly open the door to ending the legislative filibuster just as the Republicans, for the first time in years, control both the Senate and the White House.
If any of my students were this stupid, I would recommend pursuing a different career. Under the present circumstances, however, my recommendation for Sen. Schumer is this: Keep on keepin' on. Please!
Unlike Professor Kingsfield, though, you can't hand them a dime and tell them to call their mothers. They may not have ever seen a coin-operated pay phone.
Initially, I couldn't come up with any logical reason why Dems would filibuster. I only saw potential downside. But, upon further analysis, and recognizing that nothing is more important to a politician than getting re-elected, I believe the primary, if not exclusive, motivating factor behind most, if not all, filibustering Dems is fear that they will be primaried by the left-wing of their party if they voted to confirm (a clearly qualified) Judge Gorsuch.
Term Limits -- the only way to Drain the Swamp.
Paul, as I write, I am sitting 12 blocks east of a domed building with term limits.
It's still a swamp.
The Dems dodged a serious bullet when Scalia died. Mandatory PEU funding was going bye-bye (it's indefensible as a matter of First Amendment law). Gorsuch will be a vote to kill Abood.
The Dems rely on the judiciary to enact their agenda with deniability on their part. They are swinging for the fences--so I don't see the filibuster as irrational. Plus, as you point out, they want to get re-elected.
You know who else is well qualified? Merrick Garland. Just saying.
notablogger, as you know, the failure to bring Garland to a vote was fully consistent with positions that Reid and Biden took. Moreover, why would Barack Obama, who, while Senator, led a filibuster attempt deserve to have the ability to install a Supreme Court Justice as a lame duck?
My sense is that you, like Dem Sens, have no good answers to these questions. I might add as well, that it was Democrats who started and who have always escalated the judicial wars.
To give you one taste: Remember Ronnie White--the judge Ashcroft torpedoed. He failed the bar the first time around (a la Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama) and he was on academic probation in law school. Clearly not qualified, yet Dems (and the pliant media) pilloried the GOP for responsibly delaying his ascension to the federal bench. Consider Merrick Garland appropriate payback for that. (Even though the blocking of Garland was more than justified on other grounds.)
I agree that Judge Garland is qualified, if that means learning, temperament, experience and character.
And surely it means all those things, but it means more.
The elephant in the room in these discussions is not just "qualifications" in the eighth grade civics class sense, but the direction of the law and the ideological balance of the Court.
Scalia was a conservative. With him, the Court was balanced at 4-1-4. If he were replaced by Garland, it would, in general but quite important terms, tip the balance to 5-1-3 (and this is the real reason the Democrats were so hot for it, and the Republicans so hot to resist).
Elections count. A Republican Senate didn't want to tip the balance to the liberals, and so it withheld consent, as was its constitutional prerogative.
Elections still count. We just had one that kept a Republican Senate majority but, surprisingly to many, me included, produced a (nominally) Republican President.
Such a President is going to choose a Supreme Court candidate ideologically much more like Scalia than Judge Garland. He is, instead, going to choose a conservative version of Garland: An originalist and a textualist who ALSO has exemplary learning, experience, temperament and character.
Hence Judge Gorsuch.
You wisely don't dispute that, for the reasons stated in the entry, the filibuster of Gorsuch is a dumb move -- dumb from the Democrats' own perspective, and the certainty that it will fail is only the beginning. As I noted in my first post, it's what happens when petulance displaces judgment. Neither party is so popular with the voters that it can afford the luxury of anger, but the Dems are indulging that luxury anyway. I believe it won't take long for them to regret its price.