Pat Toomey’s decision to follow Mitch McConnell’s orders and obstruct the constitutional process is yet another example of his loyalty to Republican obstructionism. To deny out of hand an unannounced Supreme Court nominee can only be explained by partisanship. Even worse is then attempting to defend your position with a precedent that simply does not exist. That’s what Pat Toomey did. And that’s who Pat Toomey is: a misleading politician who would rather harm his opposition than uphold his oath of office.
Read the editorial pages from across the Commonwealth of Pennyslvania, laying bare the fact that Toomey is showing his true partisan colors with his indefensible position on the Supreme Court vacancy:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: After Scalia: Fill the vacancy with a scholarly centrist
… The demand by Republican candidates and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that President Barack Obama refrain from nominating a successor to Justice Scalia, 11 months before the president leaves office, is a shameless attempt at obstructionism. They would leave the court hobbled by 4-4 deadlocks on pivotal cases, in hopes of capturing the White House and naming a politically desirable appointee who would not ascend to the bench for a year or, more likely, 18 months.
This would be another form of government shutdown — entirely unnecessary and in defiance of doing the people’s business …
Editorial Board
PennLive: Republicans might not like it, but Obama has the obligation to name Justice Scalia’s replacement
… We have news for McConnell: The American people have had a voice in the selection.
They overwhelmingly elected Obama in 2012 – for a second time – knowing full well that among his most significant responsibilities would be filling any vacancies in a closely split Supreme Court.
There was no asterisk indicating that the president fulfill his obligations for only the first three-quarters of his term (although this odd misperception seems to be running rampant on Capitol Hill, what with congressional Republicans this month dismissing the president’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal all but sight unseen).
… There is no precedent for the Senate to block action on a Supreme Court nomination for nearly a full year.
More to the point, there is no precedent for the Senate to announce opposition to a Supreme Court nomination before it has even been made.
Were this discussion taking place in August, concerns about timing might be valid. At this distant remove from the transfer of presidential power, they are simply vapid …
Editorial Board
Philadelphia Inquirer: Antonin Scalia and the limits of ideology
There is no precedent or principle that should prevent a duly elected president from making a nomination to the Supreme Court, or the Senate from considering it, with nearly a year left in their terms. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and others have understandable motives for attempting to invent one. Rejecting or ignoring a qualified nominee would be much more difficult and potentially embarrassing to the Senate than claiming that some time-honored maxim won’t allow it to fulfill its constitutional obligation until next year.
… For all his uncompromising and often vitriolic advocacy, Scalia himself evidently saw the limits of partisanship. He was famously fast friends with the court’s liberal elder stateswoman, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and, as Obama adviser David Axelrod recounted for CNN, lobbied for the appointment of another progressive, Elena Kagan, out of affection and admiration.
In light of such fellow feeling among fierce ideological opposites, it’s disheartening that our politics may have sunk beneath the level where such common ground can be contemplated.
Editorial Board
The Scranton Times-Tribune: Nominate and confirm
… Mr. McConnell’s suggestion mocks the constitutional standing of the judiciary as an independent and equal branch of the government. It would hold that branch hostage to the very politics from which it is supposed to be insulated.
… Self-serving politics is the only available excuse that Mr. McConnell and his allies could offer for refusing to engage in their constitutionally required advice-and-consent function until it suits them.
And it is politically idiotic to do so. Obviously, conservatives are not happy about losing the conservative advantage on the court resulting from the death of Justice Scalia.
But Republicans already are at risk of losing the Senate majority because 24 of the 33 seats up for election are held by Republicans. Seven GOP incumbents, including Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, won their 2010 races by narrow margins in states that President Obama carried easily in 2012.
Failing to confirm a sound candidate would further energize the Democratic base. Perhaps the best shot the Republicans have of hanging on to the Senate is by doing their jobs.
Editorial Board
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Toomey cites non-existent precedent for not confirming SCOTUS nominee
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, said Monday the Senate will shoot down any Supreme Court nomination President Obama makes during his final year in the White House.
Toomey said Obama “certainly has the authority” to nominate a replacement for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday. But Toomey, who is up for re-election, said it is “common for vacancies that arise on the Supreme Court (in the final year of a presidency) to await the outcome of the next election.”
That depends on the definition of “common.”
… When asked to square the discrepancies, Ferdinand replied: “It’s worth noting that it has been at least 80 years since a (Supreme Court) vacancy that arose in the last year of a presidency has been filled.”
That’s the standard Republican line at the moment, but it’s also just not so …
Tom Fontaine, Off the road politics
Philadelphia Daily News: Scalia’s death and the new American Civil War
… Conservatives are desperate to stall — at least 345 days, which would shatter past records — until President Donald J. Trump, or whoever the GOP hopes to elect in November, can appoint Scalia Lite and thus resume the restoration of the 19th Century.
… But there is no drama over the outcome over the next 11 months; Senate Republicans have all but guaranteed total obstruction — a shocking breach of its Constitutional responsibility that raises questions whether, at the ripe young age of 240, America can successfully be governed.
Indeed, Scalia’s corpse probably hadn’t even finished its long slow ride through the arid Texas desert before GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared this Saturday night: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.” — referring to the fall presidential election. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.” Indeed, a number of GOP senators running for re-election in states that went for Obama in 2012 — the kind of endangered pol who might normally be tempted to break ranks with McConnell and the Republican establishment — say they’re on board with this blatant obstruction.
Some Republicans claim history is on their side — which is utter baloney …
Will Bunch, Attytood Blog
The Times of Chester County: Scalia’s death puts Toomey in an impossible position
… Republicans have a real message struggle with this one: since President Ronald Reagan managed to get Anthony Kennedy confirmed during an election year as a lame duck in 1988, it’s going to force U.S. Senate Republicans to tie themselves in knots on essentially preempting President Obama’s right to be, well, president.
And as Toomey is going to need a bundle of independent and Democratic votes to get reelected, it puts him, as well as colleagues Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rob Portman of Ohio in a bind. All face reelection in blue or purple states, which means they have to think twice before pandering to the GOP base.
…
Mike McGann, Editor
Philadelphia Inquirer: Daily Signe Cartoon
###