Washington – The top Democrat in the Senate is warning President-elect Donald Trump about his eventual Supreme Court choice: Name a “mainstream” nominee or Democrats will oppose the individual “with everything we have.”
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“My worry is, with the hard right running the show, that the likelihood of the nominee being mainstream is decreasing every day,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday in an interview.
Schumer made the comments a day after saying on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that Democrats will “absolutely” do their best to keep the Supreme Court seat open if Trump doesn’t nominate someone whom Democrats could support.
The seat has been vacant for 11 months since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last February. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blocked consideration of President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, saying the next president should make the pick. The strategy paid off, and the Republican Senate will consider whomever Trump nominates.
As minority leader, Schumer won’t have the same power as McConnell to block a nominee. But his words signal that Democrats could filibuster and force Republicans to round up 60 votes to move ahead. That will be a challenge for the GOP since they only hold 52 seats.
If Republicans can’t get enough Democratic votes, then they do have another option — change the rules and curb the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., did that for lower court nominees and other nominations in 2013.
Schumer didn’t define what he meant by “mainstream.” But he did say on Maddow’s show that Garland, Obama’s unsuccessful pick, was “a very moderate, mainstream nominee.” Garland has been considered a liberal-leaning moderate in his years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Chucky its Ok. We can wait till 2018 when the republicans gain a filibuster 60 seat majority.
Schumer equates liberal with mainstream.
And he said this on an extreme left wing network and show, MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show”.
This guy doesn’t just have the morals of an alley cat, but he is severely deficient in the intellect department. I am not puzzled how he graduated law school. I am more puzzled how he got into it.
If any Republican said anything similar to this, the mainstream media and the Democrats would cry foul. A frum Jew should never utter the words and names they would call Republicans for this. But this idiot thinks we respect his opinion here?
Mr. Schumer: You were far more useful when you were worried about the font size of the nutritional labels on junk food. Go back to those areas where your expertise might actually be useful. Your current spewing of this partisan garbage is insulting to those among us with IQ’s above 50. I am among those who are completely embarrassed that you serve as one of my elected representatives.
Chuckie – you’re the lowest guy in the House. America has a new President a new Congress who will make America GREAT as it was in the Reagan years. So you have a choice – Hop along or quit.
Chuckie, look how hard it is to be in the minority for 1 day that you’re having a fit. GOP let OBama put in those 2 liberal left wing female Justices to the SC and you will allow Trump to FINALLY put in a right wing Conservative justice!! As the saying goes “if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen”
Demacrats are a bunch of sore losers we just had an election and you guys got your rearends kicked.
Ha.
I remember, way way back when I wasn’t even old enough to vote (I’m 48 now) and Chuckie was just getting started in politics,.running for some local Brooklyn office, how he came into the old Naroler beis medrash and started pontificating about how his last name comes from “shomer”, meaning guardian. He came across as a bit of a phony then, and I don’t think he’s improved all that much over the years.
In any case, Reid’s nuclear option is probably the way to go. They can whine about it all they like, but they’re powerless to stop it. Don’t forget, the Democrats were in the same position in 2010 that the Republicans are in now. They had the option to compromise then, and they didn’t, instead ramming through their one-sided agenda with no support from the R’s. Possibly as a result of this, the coin has now flipped. Sauce for the goose, etc.
(Who else would like to see Ted Cruz take Scalia’s place? They have the same mehalech, and plus,.the other senators all despise him, so they’d likely approve him just to get him out of the Senate…)
Who is that scary dead-looking lady on a right?