tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post2588641022162668503..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: The OLC Recess Appointment OpinionJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-89829457903488730382012-01-13T05:55:48.376-06:002012-01-13T05:55:48.376-06:00....they could reform the Senate to allow for majo...<i>....they could reform the Senate to allow for majority confirmation of executive branch nominees.</i> <br /><br />No such reform is necessary. No executive branch nominee needs a Senate super-majority for <i>confirmation</i>.<br /><br />What they need is a super-majority for mere <i>consideration</i>.<br /><br />Because the Republican minority, representing, and being composed of, <i>real</i> Americans, is <i>the</i> sole repository of the popular will, and hence the only source of legitimate government.<br /><br />A mere nose-count cannot confer the Mandate of Heaven.<br /><br />The strangest career of a political term in the last two centuries isn't that of the word "liberal", it's that of the word "republican".<br /><br />Today it means "divine right monarchists", or "sede-vacantists", depending on how the last election went.Davis X. Machinahttp://davisxmachina.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-88930426995087310322012-01-12T20:18:51.465-06:002012-01-12T20:18:51.465-06:00Response to Jason's link: A nice little propos...Response to Jason's link: A nice little proposal -- if the partisan wars had never happened and never gotten to today's place. <br /><br />From a progressive viewpoint, giving up one-third of judicial nominees to Republican direction essentially validates Republican strategy. Since Reagan we've had 3 decades of Republicans doing everything they can to push the courts to the right, stuffing them with their Federalist Society nominees when they could, finding plausible Supreme Court candidates who have since revealed themselves to be politically biased in a way that violates all previous norms of judicial impartiality, and stalling and vetoing Democratic nominees in the 11 years since Reagan that Democrats have held the President's constitutional nomination power. <br /><br />So Obama outrages his base by giving up the court-stuffing game to the GOP, yet your proposal at that point is left hoping that the GOP will agree to play nice with actual Democratic nominees in a 90-day window (and their third would go through with the same speed). It is reminiscent of the sort of Congressional inter-partisan un-written rules we're familiar with, in Congress's modern history up to about 1994 and the Gingrich Revolution. <br /><br />But the Republicans could have set up such a new set of un-written rules in a quiet backroom sit-down with the Democratic leadership anytime since January 2007. They haven't chosen to do so. <br />Indeed they have chosen much more confrontational strategies, and since January 2009 have taken up a version of what the Czech nationalists did to the Austria-Hungarian Empire's parliament, I think it was the 1890's, "the war of the inkpots," purposely disrupting all legislative sessions by hurling pots of India ink at their opponents. They could seek a truce, a new bargain any time they wanted to, they haven't wanted to seek nice negotiated peace so normal business could resume.philosophical-ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04329015177186261224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-44279562400462521892012-01-12T18:41:43.365-06:002012-01-12T18:41:43.365-06:00As someone who values the advise-and-consent role ...As someone who values the advise-and-consent role of the Senate, I'd be curious what you think of these proposed steps to addressing the narrower issue of judicial nominees: http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/12/12/clearing-the-benches/read/nexus/<br />I don't know what the odds would be for such a bargain and rules change actually happening, but I was trying to develop a proposal that would preserve meaningful advise-and-consent over the federal judiciary while curtailing the partisan gridlock.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11671050987524165406noreply@blogger.com