Gorsuch, The Dems & the Perversion of the Loyal Opposition

Gorsuch, The Dems & the Perversion of the Loyal Opposition
The View from the Middle

Throughout our history, it has been the role of the minority party to defend its values and insure that the majority party didn’t run roughshod over them and, in effect, their constituencies. This is actually an important part of a democracy and something our founders anticipated would keep our republic from drifting too far in either direction, which they considered dangerous. Today’s Democrat Party has perverted the role of the “loyal opposition” however and turned into the “paranoid obstructionists”.
First, let’s take a look at the Democrats treatment of the Trump cabinet vs. the Republican Party’s treatment of Obama’s, which I’m sure they found to be just as distasteful. President Obama had over half of his cabinet (8 members) confirmed on the day of his inauguration. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates was a holdover and didn’t require a confirmation hearing. Obama also had 12 of his 15 cabinet members confirmed within two weeks of his inauguration.
President Trump had only two members of his cabinet available to him the day after his inauguration, and only four in the first two weeks. In fact, the confirmation process for Trump’s cabinet has been the slowest in modern history, and is still not complete. There is a point at which the minority party stops performing the role of the loyal opposition and becomes an impediment to the new President and actually performs a disservice to the American people. They, the American people, want the government to work, and in this situation the Democrats have been thwarting that possibility.
And for the last couple of days I have watched Democrats rationalizing their “no” votes against Neil Gorsuch to the point of being ridiculous. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.” The Dems have been so focused on finding anything bad to say about Gorsuch that they have completely ignored his qualifications. He graduated from Columbia, Harvard Law School and Oxford. He’s a pretty smart guy! He has been an Appellate Court judge for almost 10 years and has only been overturned by the Supreme Court one time. He knows what he’s doing. And he has the highest rating from the American Bar Association. That’s a lot to ignore along with the thousands of rulings he has made that conflict with the portrait that Democrats are trying to paint of him.
But, you say, this is just what the Republicans did to Obama, right? NO. Sonia Sotomayer was approved with 68 votes in the Senate with nine Republicans joining the Democrats and Independents voting in favor of her appointment (Ted Kennedy was not able to vote). Elana Kagan was approved with a 63 to 37 vote with five Republicans breaking ranks to get her approved. Without Republican support, neither Sotomayor nor Kagan could have gotten by the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
OK you say, Republicans were able to play the loyal opposition role in these cases while still allowing the process to move forward, but they were total obstructionists when it came to Merrick Garland. Actually, no again. I’ve written an article that supported giving Garland a hearing, but I at least understand the Republican argument on the subject.
And no one argued it better than Joe Biden back in 1992 when he insisted that George H. W. Bush should not even make a nomination for the Supreme Court in a Presidential election season. He suggested that if an opening occurred while a new President is being elected, the privilege / responsibility of selecting that new justice should be saved for the new President. Scalia died in February of 2016, and waiting for the new President caused the court to operate with eight justices for over a year. If I were king, I would have granted a vote on Garland, but I do at least understand Joe Biden’s argument. Biden may now regret making his bold declaration and he may even try to suggest he didn’t mean it, but unfortunately, the video speaks for itself.
The Gorsuch confirmation process gives Democrats the opportunity to put the country ahead of their selfish, partisan interests, but as I watch the tortured, slanted questions from that side, I fear that Democrats will force Republicans to invoke the nuclear option to get this eminently qualified candidate approved. They should follow the example of Republicans in the cases of Sotomayor and Kagan and place Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
A friend of mine made a suggestion that actually makes total sense to me, but which I’m unsure will ever happen. He proposed that Democrats should help confirm Gorsuch with a bi-partisan 60+ vote total, and Trump could reward that cooperation by promising to nominate Merrick Garland for the next vacancy. Since Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and Justice Kennedy will turn 81 in July, there is likelihood that Donald Trump will appoint at least one more Justice. These two moves, one by Democrats and one by President Trump would go a long way to unite the country. In the old “swamp” this would never happen, but with the unconventional Donald Trump, might this “deal” be a possibility?
Final note – my wife and editor in chief agrees with all of this article, except for the last paragraph. Isn’t this a great country where we can disagree and still be friends?