Naked Republican hypocrisy is destroying trust in Supreme Court: Reagan, Bush lawyers
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Turning SCOTUS into political game
Indeed, if Senate Republicans force Judge Barrett through in the waning weeks before a presidential election — after denying President Obama any opportunity for Senate consideration of his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland nearly a year before the 2016 election — the American people will unavoidably see the Supreme Court as just another forum for power politics and political players.
The legitimacy of the judicial branch rests on the principle that judges are independent and unbiased interpreters of the law. A fair process for nomination and selection is crucial to preserving a public perception of the Justices of the Supreme Court as neutral jurists, rather than pawns of the political process. In fact, if this Republican power play succeeds, the Chief Justice’s recent reaffirmation that “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges” will be made quite untenable.
Whatever one thinks of McConnell’s action in 2016 to deny any consideration to President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland — and we think it was clearly wrong — an action now to proceed with a Republican nominee for a vacancy arising less than two months before the election would flatly violate the principle McConnell announced then to justify the action he took. When McConnell set a new standard for how the Senate would proceed with a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year, the American people understood that this new rule would be applied consistently should another vacancy to which it clearly applies arise on McConnell’s watch.
By going back on his word, McConnell’s arbitrary application of rules obliterates any pretense of any justification except the bald pursuit of power. It is flatly inconsistent with the vision of our founders that our government would be made legitimate because it was trusted by and accountable to the people. And if left unchecked, Senator McConnell’s move — and the complicity of every Republican Senator who refused to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination in 2016 but will go along with a vote now — will powerfully testify that the Republicans who control the Senate have no respect for the consistent application of legal rules, but seek only to maximize their own power.
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