The Next National Nightmare: A Republican Majority Congress in 2015

[Jim Lane]

24. Another scenario: yet more veto wars, and don't forget the confirmation wars

I'm not predicting this, but it's not implausible:

* Aided by the math of 2014, where many more Democratic Senators are up for re-election, Republicans take the Senate.
* Without a Democratic Senate to restrain them, the House Republicans pass even more crazy stuff, much of which gets approved in the Senate and then vetoed.
* Frustrated at the vetoes, Republicans attach RWNJ riders to must-pass bills. Expect another shutdown.
* With a Senate majority, Republicans basically stop confirming any Obama nominees, except a few judges approved by their home-state Republican Senators. They certainly won't confirm a Supreme Court nominee who's anywhere to the left of Scalia.
* In 2016, as you point out, the Senate math is reversed. Democrats regain control.
* BUT the Democrats, who haven't taken the electoral vote three times in a row since FDR/Truman, are perceived as ineffective because Obama couldn't get anything done. A Republican wins the Presidency.
* The Senate Democrats, remembering how Obama was treated, respond in kind. President Huckabee (or whoever) can scarcely get any of his nominees approved. The Democrats certainly won't approve any Supreme Court nominees for vacancies that arose during the Obama administration.

A lot of those people on the Supreme Court are old. In this scenario the Court might have only five or six judges by the 2020 election.