Toomey joins Trump and McConnell in backing push to fill Supreme Court seat, reversing 2016 stance

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

WASHINGTON — In a stark reversal of the standard he set in 2016, Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) said Tuesday that he will support filling a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court this year, despite a presidential election being only weeks away.

Toomey, who in 2016 argued that the Senate should wait months for the results of that year’s presidential election because the balance of the court was at stake, said the Senate should do the opposite this year, because the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.

“The difference between these Senate practices makes perfect sense," Toomey said in a statement. "When divided government creates tension between the two organs responsible for filling a position on the Supreme Court, it is completely justifiable to leave open a vacancy until the voters have had a chance to speak. In 2016, the voters spoke by electing a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate. In 2018, the voters expanded the Republican majority in the Senate. Since the voters resolved the tension between the White House and the Senate, there is no reason to delay filling this vacancy.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Read more: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/pat-toomey-ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-seat-20200922.html

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Teabagger Toomey strikes again!

Pretzel-twisting reasoning.

ETA - His idiotic remark - "When divided government creates tension between the two organs " misses the fact that the House HAS a Democratic Party majority which = "divided government".

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Traitor

Traitor

[BumRushDaShow]

4. We had the opportunity to get rid of him in 2016

and people who voted for Democrats like Josh Shapiro for State Attorney General and voted for Democrats for other top of the ticket state races like State Auditor General and State Treasurer, skipped over Katie McGinty and Hillary Clinton.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Let's not forget

Kate McGinty wasn't a fighter, and Mike Bloomberg aided his Wall Street buddy Toomey.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. The 2016 ticket-splitting was of concern to me

but then I always considered the Democratic Party "machine" here in PA as relatively weak. The "machine" ends up coming out of Philly most times.

[liskddksil]

22. Yep, Mike Bloomberg is responsible for this as much as anyone. Let us never forget that nt

[RobinA]

7. Toomey Is No Traitor

He serves the same masters he has always served. He is a very reliable winger

[FBaggins]

2. I don't understand why anyone is surprised

We were all surprised when RBG passed away... but not really. We knew it was a possibility and were all praying that she would make it at least through January - but it's obvious that republicans had plenty of "what will we do if..." conversations. McConnell likely knew exactly how close to the election he could get and still have enough support to seat a replacement. It was remarkably tone-deaf (politically) to immediately announce that they would fill the seat, but it almost certainly wasn't because he didn't already know that he had the votes (and likely the nominee's name as well).

He probably also knows that he has Collins/Murkowski's votes if he needs them. He just let them "off the reservation" for political purposes.

[RhodeIslandOne]

9. The joke is that they're engaging in this kabuki theater "revealing their decision"

They should just all line up, drop their pants and start jerking themselves off because we know that's what they've been doing all weekend.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Not so much surprised because they normally lockstep

but given that Toomey is in a swing state in a close election, he decided to make a conscious decision that may hopefully help our side.

Breyer, Thomas, and Alito are the 3 oldest left now.

[FBaggins]

13. Toomey doesn't face the voters until 2022 nt

[BumRushDaShow]

16. I know

We had a chance to get rid of him in 2016 but there was a lot of ticket-splitting going on in that election. In fact, Josh Shapiro (D) got almost 192K MORE votes in the State Attorney General race than Katie McGinty got against Toomey for U.S. Senator.

[Raven123]

12. Exactly. The hard ASAP push for a vote is interesting. Makes me think they are worried about

keeping control of the Senate. Got to juice up the base and perhaps bring back defections in the voting ranks

[FBaggins]

14. They probably are worried - but this isn't evidence of it

Most here weren't too worried about Merrick Garland being blocked in 2016 - because we were pretty certain that Clinton would win and her coattails would usher in a Democratic senate.

That was a painful lesson to learn and I suspect republicans learned it as well. Why would they take a chance even if they thought that they had a 90% chance of victory?

[Raven123]

18. Perhaps, but the GOP knows Dems are energized this year.

Even if they lost the Senate in the Nov. election the current Senators would have plenty if time to vote on a SCOTUS nominee. So why try to hurry up before Nov 3?

[still_one]

3. The focus should be on making the republicans a minority party in the Senate

[Lonestarblue]

15. Agree. This battle is lost.

We need to focus on the war by picking up four or more Senate seats in this election and sending Mitch McConnell back to minority status. Then for 2022, we need to focus on governors and state legislatures. Governor Abbott is up for reelection in 2022, and I think Beto could beat him.

In 2022, 22 Republican senators will be up for reelection, with only 12 Democrats up. Here’s the list from Ballotpedia. I’m not sure why McSally and Loeffler are listed for 2022 since both are running now. Ron Johnson has already announced that he is not running again, so that’s an open seat that should be in play. Grassley will be 88 in 2022, so he may not run either. Pat Toomey and Roy Blunt both had low victory margins last time.

Republicans:

Alabama Richard Shelby
Alaska Lisa Murkowski
Arizona Martha McSally
Arkansas John Boozman
Florida Marco Rubio
Georgia Kelly Loeffler
Idaho Mike Crapo
Indiana Todd Young
Iowa Chuck Grassley
Kansas Jerry Moran
Kentucky Rand Paul
Louisiana John Neely Kennedy
Missouri Roy Blunt
North Carolina Richard Burr
North Dakota John Hoeven
Ohio Rob Portman
Oklahoma James Lankford
Pennsylvania Pat Toomey
South Carolina Tim Scott
South Dakota John Thune
Utah Mike Lee
Wisconsin Ron Johnson

Here are the Democrats. I’m hoping Kamala is in the White House. Most of these are safe seats for Democrats, except possibly Catherine Cortex Masto and Maggie Hassan. Both had very small winning margins for their last election.

California Kamala Harris
Colorado Michael Bennet
Connecticut Richard Blumenthal
Hawaii Brian Schatz
Illinois Tammy Duckworth
Maryland Democratic Party Chris Van Hollen
Nevada Catherine Cortez Masto
New Hampshire Maggie Hassan
New York Charles Schumer
Oregon Ron Wyden
Vermont Patrick Leahy
Washington Patty Murray

[jmowreader]

19. Hopefully this will cause the voters of Kentucky to reject Mitch

[still_one]

20. +++

[Vogon_Glory]

5. Banana Republican: the rot starts from the top

Principles—what principles?
Honor: what honor?
Integrity: what’s that?
The Constitution: whatever we say at the time. Whatever we said in the past doesn’t count.

###

On/before November 3rd: vote Basta.

Enough already!

[samsingh]

8. repugs show they don't care about Democracy or rules

they will do whatever they want when they have the power.

moscow mitch is a traitor who hates America.

[world wide wally]

10. Actually, if logic were a president, it should be REQUIRED to wait until after an election

when the President and the Senate are not f the same party.
The concept of checks and balances is an important factor in preserving our democracy. Not lockstep apeasement.

[liskddksil]

21. Thanks for the endorsement Mike Bloomberg. You screwed us for generations. nt

[kwolf68]

23. Guess my personal letter to him did no good

I tried to show how Garland had MORE reason to be appointed than whoever the new person will be:

-Obama won two elections
-Obama won the majority of the popular vote

And because Obama was extremely practical, he nominated a moderate voice for the court.

None of it mattered, Turtle's entire goal was to block the Black Guy in the White House at every turn.

Republicans spewed their verbal trash that it was too close to election, making no statements about "who was in power", hint a fucking Democratic President was. Didn't matter, it was JUST TOO CLOSE, let the voters decide.

Until NOW, because "we expanded the Senate majority" (only 1/3 of the fucking Senate was voted on, mostly bright red states) then all that talk about letting the voters decide was just hot air. The Republican Party has absolutely no shame, no honor, no integrity, they are ghouls, liars and hypocrites. They are a party acting out in the most blatant, even fascist ways, a movement that is on the rise does NOT do this. I take some small sense of hope that even when a ChristoFascist is sworn in to take Justice Ginsberg's spot on the court, it will be the turning point of when the Republican party began their slow dissent into irrelevancy. That said, the state numbers for the Senate will never look good and the EC along with a probably 6-3 SCOTUS majority, a bought and paid off media, entrenchment of Citizens United as our law of the land will make the battle tough, but I do hope that pendulum swings back switfly.

[Hiawatha Pete]

24. More proof the reptilian party will pull anything out of their ass

as an excuse to 'justify' their self-serving double-standards.

Best for the next Democratic President to ignore their bullshit and let them whine like the babies they are.