This is the statement by Senator Chuck Grassley about going forward with filling the seat on SCOTUS before the next inauguration. Please do read it. It raises these points:
1. Do you remember the "King's X" on the playground from when you were a kid? You know, when someone offered you a deal and you took it, only to get shortchanged because the kid pulls his hand from behind his back & says "I don't have to, I had a King's X"? Why did this come to mind? Keep reading.
2. In his statement, Grassley grows about the voters electing more Republicans to the Senate in 2018 after Trump appointed Gorsuch & Kavanaugh. Consider this from THE ATLANTIC:
"Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 50–48, with one senator absent and one abstaining. Only one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted with the solidly Republican majority, which represented just 44 percent of the country’s population. Indeed, when Americans last voted for their senators (over a period of six years), Democrats won the popular vote by more than 8 percent. It’s that disproportionality—and the reality that a majority of the country’s population is represented by just 18 senators—that is driving concerns about the Senate’s ability to function as a representative body in a changing America." [Full link to the article: https://www.theatlantic.com/.../senators.../572623/ ]
3. Grassley now says that it's okay to approve a nominee after presidential voting has begun because the Senate & the President are of the same party, there's no "divided government" (although he neglects to mention that this president lost the popular vote and that the Republican Senate majority represents as a distinct minority of the U.S. population and of the votes cast for Senate seats.) But I digress. Here is a portion of Senator Grassley's letter to me in March 2016 that lays out his argument for the "Biden rule," as he labels it.
Grassley wrote:
"As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I take very seriously the advice of my predecessors, on the appropriateness for the Senate to withhold consent on any nominee to the Supreme Court, should the President not follow the example of his predecessors, such as President Lincoln, who abstained from making a nomination during a presidential election year until after the people voted. In 1992, while serving as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, then-Senator Joe Biden spoke on the Senate floor about the proper actions of the Senate in this very circumstance. My friend and colleague stated "Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the president, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself...Where the nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."I share the concerns of my friend Vice President Biden. We know that a nominee will not ultimately get confirmed, and because election season is well underway, no matter the qualifications of any potential nominee, the hyper-political environment would cause harm to the court, to the nominee, and to the nation.It is important to remember that Congress is a coequal branch of government, and our founders sought to protect each branch of government from undue influence from either of the other two."
[The entire letter is here: https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/.../senator-grassley... ]
Perhaps, when reading Grassley's letter to me and then his most recent statement, you know why I was reminded of the "King's X" and, I must add, playground arguments. Of course, I learned not to trust those who used the "King's X." And I learned from my parents that "everyone else does it" isn't a valid excuse for my choices, not in an adult world. And I don't know that I ever floated the "they WOULD do it" argument that Senator Grassley usus in his attempt to justify the actions of himself and most of his Republican colleagues. I knew my (Republican) parents well enough to know that the "they would do it" excuse wouldn't fly (and would only elicit greater sanctions for me). My, how times change.
Well, here you have it: Grassley in 2016 and Grassley in 2020. Do you see the "King's X?"
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