McConnell’s moment was a long time coming
I want to call your attention to this article by Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard on how McConnell twisted arms to get the Gorsuch nomination. Some of the usual suspects—Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bob Corker were extremely hesitant to vote for the nuclear option, the first two because they were afraid that Gorsuch would tip the SCOTUS balance to the anti-abortion side, and Corker out of respect for tradition.
Barnes describes the pressure McConnell brought to bear—and I doubt it’s the whole story of that pressure, either, because what is described in the article seems a lot milder than the (figurative) arm-twisting I suspect happened. But what is clear is that McConnell was resolved to do this.
What’s also important to remember is that McConnell’s actions were a two-parter, and occurred over a period of a little more than a year. Justice Scalia died in February of 2016, and Gorsuch could not have been nominated and confirmed without McConnell and the GOP in the Senate stonewalling the Garland nomination. In some ways that was the more precedent-breaking move; the nuclear option for SCOTUS nominations merely restored the Senate’s tradition of approving a president’s qualified nominees, and Gorsuch is eminently qualified:
When I [Barnes] interviewed McConnell shortly after Gorsuch was confirmed, he wanted to talk before I asked a question. He had plenty to say. It’s rare there are things “you can say you did on your own.” One was his snap decision to bar the Senate from taking up a Supreme Court nomination until a new president took office. Only the majority leader could do this. “It is the most consequential decision I ever made,” McConnell said.
And it turned out the open seat was an “electoral asset” for Trump. Voters didn’t like him or Hillary Clinton. But once filling the seat became the “principal issue,” Trump had the advantage. Everyone knew she would dump Garland, a moderate, for someone further to the left.
“We didn’t know if the president would be a conservative or not,” McConnell said. However, he had promised to pick a nominee from a list of 20 conservative jurists. (McConnell had advocated such a list.) “This reassured conservatives.”
Note that little sentence that’s slipped in there, parenthetically: McConnell had advocated such a list. Trump may not have been McConnell’s choice to win the nominations—in fact, I very much doubt he was his first choice or even his second or third. But nevertheless, McConnell may have been instrumental in helping Trump beat Hillary Clinton, once it was clear that Trump would be the nominee (Trump released his first list in May of 2016 and his second in September of 2016).
McConnell has an interesting history that might shed a little light on this:
…McConnell graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was president of the Student Bar Association…
…McConnell was an assistant to Senator Marlow Cook (R-KY) and was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford, where he worked alongside future Justice Antonin Scalia.
For McConnell, finding Scalia’s replacement may have been both political and personal.
Thank you for that information, it does shed a more favorable light upon McConnell. Credit where credit is due.
I may be overly critical…and Lord knows I can certainly point to plenty of justification for being so…but isn’t it McConnell’s JOB to get stuff like this done?
He FINALLY DID what he was elected to do, and expected to do IN HIS POSITION. All this slobbering adulation simply means we are gobsmacked that he actually had it in him to do his job.
John Guilfoyle:
I’m not sure why you think so many people here are gobsmacked. I’m certainly not. I think the people who detested McConnell and have been reviling him for years as a coward are the ones who are gobsmacked.
Hi neo…”Gobsmacked” – guilty as charged. I am glad he did it…but it is his job. And when someone finally does his (or her) job it is not usually called their “shining moment.” It is called “doing their job.”
Today is a new day…he needs to keep doing it. AND if he can’t somehow get on board with the President that is on McConnell’s side of the aisle and get more of the President’s agenda enacted…then that “shining moment” should be his last IN HIS POSITION.
That list of potential nominees for SCOTUS may have been the most impactful thing the Trump campaign did to influence serious conservative voters. Did a lot for me.
And that IS the infuriating thing about McConnell.
We KNOW he is capable of being useful to the Senate, the Republican Party, and the United States.
But he almost never delivers. He usually just takes up a space which could be better occupied by a more energetic, more courageous, and more useful man.
America’s first President with distinctly totalitarian tendencies was probably Woodrow Wilson. His plans to fundamentally transform the United States into something more compatible with his megalomania were generally thwarted by the Senate, specifically by Henry Cabot Lodge. The Republicans didn’t yet have an official Majority Leader – Lodge’s successor, Charles Curtis, would become the first one in 1925 – but Lodge performed that function. And, when it came to protecting the country from a totalitarian wannabe in the Oval office, he performed it well.
When it came to protecting us from Obama, who was something of a Wilson Lite, McConnell turned out to nowhere near what we needed, a Lodge Lite at absolute minimum. McConnell doesn’t seem to have even been voting “present” for eight long years.
Thanks for the info. It’s back stories like these that a lot of people never see. Thus, less understanding of the way politics works. It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and carp. Much more difficult when one is in the arena. Mitch isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but he is what we have and the people of Kentucky keep voting for him. Good job on this issue, Mitch.
J.J.,
Not only do some people sit on the sidelines and carp, many of them are too lazy or too dumb to take their case to the electorate. You have to be able to show people that your ideas work better for them. I am hoping that some of the Republican local and state pols might start doing this now.
I give credit where I think it due and criticism where I think it is due. McConnell hit this one out of the park with bases loaded.
Neo,
You wrote “Scalia died in February of 2016, and Gorsuch could not have been nominated and confirmed without McConnell and the GOP in the Senate stonewalling the Garland nomination. In some ways that was the more precedent-breaking move;”
From the Congressional Research Service:
“From the appointment of the first Justices in 1789 through its consideration of nominee Elena Kagan in 2010, the Senate has confirmed 124 Supreme Court nominations out of 160 received. Of the 36 nominations which were not confirmed, 11 were rejected outright in roll-call votes by the Senate, while nearly all of the rest, in the face of substantial committee or Senate opposition to the nominee or the President, were withdrawn by the President, or were postponed, tabled, or never voted on by the Senate.”
See https://aclj.org/supreme-court/the-constitution-is-clear-the-senates-advice-and-consent-is-not-a-rubber-stamp-of-the-president for a thorough discussion of the subject.
I heard a portion of Chuck Schumer’s comments on the confirmation – I almost wanted to throw up. He is truly a disgrace. I almost wished I lived in NY so that I could vote against him!