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It is a common lament among progressives that Democrats in Congress don’t have enough of a spine, and, as such, many are watching the party’s handling of prospective Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch closely. The thinking goes that Democrats should protest the treatment of Obama SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland—who went 10 months without even getting a hearing before his nomination expired—by refusing to participate in the process of confirming Gorsuch. Democrats don’t have the numbers to ultimately stop Gorsuch from joining the court, but they could force majority leader Mitch McConnell to use the filibuster-eliminating “nuclear option” to confirm him, boycott votes and hearings, continually remind the press and public how badly Garland was treated by comparison, etc. And while Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have all been attending Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings, which began Monday, minority leader Chuck Schumer just took to the Senate floor to float a mischevious line of reasoning that could suggest a turn toward obstructionism:
“I’d like to point out that it is the height of irony that Republicans held this Supreme Court seat open for nearly a calendar year while President Obama was in office, but are now rushing to fill the seat for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI,” Schumer said, according to remarks sent out by his office.
Schumer said that, to him, it seemed “unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court Justice with a lifetime appointment” due to the looming FBI investigation, which could potentially last for months or years.
If Schumer and the Dems actually follow through here, it’s actually a pretty solid political troll strategy: satisfying the militant party “base” while reminding everyone else that it’s not entirely implausible to think the current president might eventually be impeached for having colluded with a foreign enemy.
