The Senate should confirm Amy Coney Barret tomorrow, without holding hearings. There is no purpose for the hearings as Democrats have already told us they will block vote against her regardless of anything she, or anyone else, says at the hearings. Some Judiciary Committee members have refused to even meet with her, as is the tradition.
So, there is nothing to be gained from a hearing and Democrats will simply use them as free advertising to rant about things not relevant to her qualifications.
There are better ways to use the Senate’s remaining time before the election than to provide a forum for meaningless grandstanding that will not change a single vote.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I disagree.
Trump is daring the Democrats to disparage a smart, successful woman. It’s a great campaign strategy.
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I doubt that Barret will come in for any personal disparagement in the way that Kavanaugh did for the simple reason that her character is far better. She IS a smart successful woman and well qualified for the post. Editor of the Law Review at a well-regarded Law School, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, law professor and experience on the Appeals Court. It is all good.
With that said, she should have to testify about her judicial philosophy, her views about religious beliefs affecting legal judgments and she should have to explain some of the things she has said about the ACA and the rulings of Chief Justice Roberts. As a reminder, the ACA is on the docket at SCOTUS the week after the election because the Trump administration is suing to throw it out. Given that and her history of damning past decisions she should be asked to recuse herself from that case.
Finally, in light of Trump’s admitted rush to get her on the Court in time to rule on the election legal chaos he is planning to foment, she should be asked to commit to recusing herself.
Why should she have to do ANY of that since her approval is certain? Because this is a democracy and the people who support – and oppose her – should be held accountable.
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This is as good a time as any to remind all that back in the Pilot forum, when Harry Reid made the choice to dump the cloture rule in judicial appointments, it would come back to bite the Democrats.
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Okay, sure. It would be great TODAY if SCOTUS appointments required 60 votes. But, in the long run, it is better that the Senate be more democratic. The Filibuster Rule is an anachronism that does far more harm than it is worth.
There is nothing in the Constitution about it. The Senate majority establishes the rules for each legislative period. When the Democrats take control of the Senate in January they can eliminate the filibuster once and for all on ALL matters that come to the Senate.
In fact, it will take a unified government that is able to act together – Presidency, House and Senate – to clean up the unholy mess that Trump is leaving behind.
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Gee, I wonder why Reid did that.
Hmmm, could it have anything to do with the Republicans blocking every judicial appointees that President Obama made?
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So, it’s OK when Democrats do it?
The cloture rule, for a century, ensured that judges would be appointed who were acceptable to both parties. And most appointees got votes from the majority of both parties.
Ginsburg was approved 96 to 3.
Ir was not until Bush’s second term that judicial appointments became party line votes.
Obama made no pretense of appointing acceptable judges, his appointees at all levels have been viciously partisan and remain so today.
Reid exercised raw political power to flood the courts with reliable partisan soldiers and ended a century+ old tradition of merit based appointments.
You reap what you sow.
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Yeah, that is the modern politics of our country.
And you can thank Newt Gingrich for starting it all.
Please recall, however that Obama had just been inaugurated and that same night politicians and operatives met and agreed to destroy Obama.
After his re-election, they agreed again. And shut down government and reneged on any deals on the budget.
Yes, you do reap what you sow.
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If Newt is responsible, he wasn’t very good at it, since partisan voting on judges didn’t begin until 10 years after he was out.
Even Kagan and Sotomayer got a large number of GOP votes.
As for your whining over Obama’s opposition, have you forgotten that Bush didn’t even get a transition? Or that his National Security Advisor was not confirmed by the Senate until 3 weeks before 9/11?
Democrats are entirely responsible for ending the safety valve the Senate once provided against rank partisanship.
Now the GOP has learned to play the game by Democrat rules. You don’t get to complain about that if you want to be taken seriously.
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Gingrich’s contribution was dividing the country. Essentially he made the word “compromise” obsolete.
Blaming Democrats for 9/11? You guys are truly desperate.
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No, I blame Whabbist Muslims for 9/11, but the plot began under Clinton, and the Democrats threw away any chance the a Bush team with an orderly transition could have stopped it.
For the first 8 months of his administration, Bush was denied people he trusted in important positions. leaving him to rely on Clinton holdovers standing between the career professionals and the White House.
As for Gingrich and compromise, before his “Contract with America” the Democrats had held both houses of Congress for 40 years.
The Contract with America was a promise to bring 8 reforms and 10 bills to a vote, all of which the Democrats had not allowed to even be brought to the floor. Not a promise to pass them all, but a promise that the issues be debated and voted. Prior to that, they were all killed anonymously in committee.
So, if you’re going to try to blame a lack of compromise on Gingrich, you are relying on people having a very short memory, and no access to the Internet.
Contract with America
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Rank partisanship?
Get real. Blocking all judicial appointments from a popular President was the worse kind of “rank partisanship.” Reid had no choice and not just for partisan reasons but because the “rank partisanship” of the Republicans was crippling the federal courts. And, of course, there is no better example of “rank partisanship” than denying Merrick Garland even a vote. And now we will have three Justices seated with simple majorities. So be it.
The next Senate will be one where the Republicans are treated the way Democrats are now, there will be no Filibuster and vital legislation passed by the House in a time of crisis will not be squashed by the “rank partisanship” of the GOP.
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With all due respect your revisionist history of how George W. Bush screwed the pooch on 9-11 is completely laughable.
Richard Clarke was still in position on the National Security staff as Bush took office and immediately sounded the alarm (January 25, 2001) on the Al Qaeda threat. in the months that followed he wrote several memos intended for Bush calling for greater efforts that did not reach him because Rice and Hadley did not take the threat seriously. Bush was famously briefed by the CIA on the specific outline of the terrorist plan – to hi-jack airliners – and did nothing but tell the briefer that he could go now that he had covered his ass.
I could also add, if we are apportioning blame for 9-11, that President Clinton’s efforts to attack Al Qaeda were blunted by Republicans claiming it was Clinton playing “wag the dog.” They were wrong. Clinton was right and, as noted above, one of his key advisors tried to put GWB in the loop on the threat.
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I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to blame Clinton for 9/11. He should have retaliated after the USS Cole.
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“He should have retaliated after the USS Cole.”
That sounds fine until you consider this . . .
Retaliate how and on whom?
That attack occurred on October 12, 2000 just weeks before the election. Clinton had already been accused of “wag the dog” for striking at Al Qaeda in Africa.
Do you are anyone else think we should go to war on the command of a lame duck President with mere weeks left in office? All of the information available about the Cole and the threat of Al Qaeda was passed to Bush. He was fresh in office and could have lead us anywhere he wanted. He did nothing about it.
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“Do you or anyone else think we should go to war on the command of a lame duck President with mere weeks left in office?”
Wait for the October surprise.
Our nation is fighting a nasty pandemic, the economy is in the toilet, we owe 6 Trillion more than when the regime took over, and we have civil unrest in a few major cities.
Trump’s America is today. But these may not be enough of a burden, so let’s attack someone on a pretense.
Unlikely? Sure. But how would we know the truth coming from this administration?
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You don’t think she will be disparaged? You must not spend any time on social media.
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I thought you were referring to the Democratic Senators who will take part in the hearing. If you are referring to some Trolls you have seen on Facebook, I have no doubt that they are out there.
Whether they are “Democrats” or Russian bots that want you to think they are Democrats is another – and actually serious – question. Because of Trump’s passivity in the face of their known meddling, they are clearly doing things exactly like that and on a massive scale. And that is according to Trump appointees in our security services.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/17/misinformation-us-elections-2020-russia
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They are not bots; they are friends who are afraid she will “set women back 100 years.”
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Well, if expressing a reasonable fear based on known facts about this woman’s belief system is what you call “disparaging” there will, indeed, be a lot of it.
For example, can a person who has chosen to be a member of a small community that requires adherence to the principle that women are subservient to men, be relied on to protect the rights of ALL individuals in our society – men and women alike? It is a legitimate question and a reasonable fear that she won’t.
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RE: “The Senate should confirm Amy Coney Barret tomorrow, without holding hearings.”
Works for me.
There are advantages to letting Democrats display themselves in hearings, but why bother? They were ugly enough in the Kavanaugh hearings for two confirmations.
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Skip the hearings and rubber stamp the appointment now? With all due respect, that is a really dumb idea. It is important that the public get a better understanding of their next SCOTUS justice and get a chance to see if they agree or disagree with the decision that their Senator’s make. Further, it would be another step toward politicizing SCOTUS and make it even more of a legislative body accountable to no one.
As for the Democrats intention to block vote against her, that is no different than the plan of the Republicans to block vote for her. So put away your indignation.
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RE: “It is important that the public get a better understanding of their next SCOTUS justice…”
Why is that important? The Senate votes on the nominee, not the public. Let the Senate get on with it.
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Why is that important? I made it clear already. It is true that the Senators vote on the nominee but, in case you are not aware, the public votes on the Senators and therefore benefit from having as much information as possible on the decisions the Senators make. So they can make INFORMED decisions the next time that Senator asks for their vote.
For example, if a Senator votes for a potential Justice who in a confirmation hearing makes clear they want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act at a time when MILLIONS of families are struggling with getting and paying for healthcare and MILLIONS more people now have pre-existing conditions that will make access to health insurance unaffordable if the ACA is overturned then that decision is highly relevant in deciding does that Senator understand what is happening here in the real world.
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RE: “So they can make INFORMED decisions the next time that Senator asks for their vote.”
I’m sure my senators will have plenty to say about their votes before and after the fact. Besides, the Barret vote is only one data point in evaluating their performance for reelecion. I don’t really need the hearing to make a judgement, and doubt anyone else does.
Beyond that: As a matter of principle, I’m not inclined to force democratic norms on a government that in fact operates as a republic.
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Okay, I have said why its important to me that there be hearings. You have said why it is not important to you. I need information and want others to have it. You don’t.
With all due respect, your last sentence is utter nonsense. We are BOTH a republic (we do not have a king, yet) and a “representative democracy.” What you disparage as “democratic norms” – an informed citizenry – is essential to the functioning of our government.
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What is the hurry? Win or lose the election, Trump will still get to seat another judge up until January.
I don’t understand the rush. We were fine with an 8 member court for a year, a couple of months will mean squat. Lifetime appointments need good vetting from both sides of the aisle.
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Agreed. No sense in providing yet another platform for more mind numbing Democrat babble. We already know the outcome so just finalize it and be done with it. No doubt, it’s what they would do.
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I’d agree if they had done the same thing with Garland.
And like Garland, she is qualified to sit on the bench. And like Garland she has opinions that are disqualifying – IMO.
But hey. Magic Mitch gets his wish. To the detriment of women’s rights to do what they choose with their own bodies, immigrants trying to make a better life REGARDLESS of country of origin, LGTBQ folks who do not want to be discriminated against because of who they are, and the idea of ALL citizens having their voting rights protected, not just the priveledged few.
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You collected that information on how Barret will decide cases with your time machine?
Of course, I agree Garland should have been given a lengthy hearing to run out the clock, and then been rejected for cause.
Not giving him a hearing was a tactical error on McConnell’s part.
But that error is not reason to do the same thing now.
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Egregious violation of the clear Constitutional intent that the Senate ACT on appointments and two centuries of precedent was a “tactical error.” Yeah, sure, just like every one of Trump’s outrageous lies is an “alternative fact.”
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“You collected that information on how Barret will decide cases with your time machine?”
They are all legitimate concerns based on her RECORD. Don’t need no stinkin’ time machine to read her decisions, positions, or anything else that is in the public domain.
She is a good woman. I have no issues with her character nor her religious choices. I take issue with the fact that she is claiming to be the “child” of Scalia, but she sounds more like the “child” of Thomas. Especially with regard to precedent.
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…” agree Garland should have been given a lengthy hearing to run out the clock, and then been rejected for cause.”
I feel the same way about Judge Barrett. But magic Mitch had the votes in his pocket BEFORE the nomination was announced. I believe he knew that when he said something to the effect the Senate would quickly vote on the nominee…..even before RBG was cold.
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Really?
For what cause should Barret be rejected? Some fault in her, or in the circumstances, as you see them?
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You say that Garland should have been rejected for “cause” but there is no “cause” to reject Barret.
You do not like something in Garland’s record on guns and that is “cause.” But a Democrat who does not like Barret’s record on women’s rights, or immigrants rights, or the role of the government in organizing healthcare or her disdain for stare decisis or her cockeyed writings about what it means to be an “orginalist” has no “cause.”
What is wrong with this picture?
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