Merrick Garland And Post-Policy Republicans

Merrick Garland received the highest rating possible from the ABA with one anonymous legal mind saying he might “be the perfect human being” in his evaluation. You remember Merrick Garland, don’t you. Yes, he was nominated by President Obama to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court way back in mid-March of this year and he has yet to have a hearing in the Senate and he probably never will as Republicans have vowed to wait until after the election to consider his nomination.  In response to this ABA recommendation, Republicans emailed that both President Obama and Vice President Biden tried to filibuster the selection of Samuel Alito, who also had the highest recommendation from the ABA.  Do you notice the difference there? Obama and Biden were actually able to vote against Alito – Republicans won’t even allow a vote when it comes to Garland.

We need to keep reminding ourselves of how unprecedented this action is, as Republicans break the traditional norms of governing once again. Nancy LeTourneau over at Washington Monthly has a great post today titled “What Happens When One Party Doesn’t Care About Governing?”. I suggest you read the entire piece. As LeTourneau notes, Republicans quietly admit that they believe that making government not work actually redounds to their advantage. They have no new policy proposals just the same old songs – tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for social programs. There is no point in negotiating with them because a negotiation implies that both sides gain something and both sides give something. Republicans are not interested in that – they would like to win but it’s more important that Democrats never win, even if that would be a win for Republicans too. They would rather lose just to make sure Democrats lose. We’ve seen it constantly throughout Obama’s term. There was clearly a deal to be made with Obama’s “grand bargain” that would have raised taxes and cut spending. But when the decision had to be made, Republicans could not allow Obama to “win” on taxes even if it meant giving up far more in spending cuts than they had ever proposed.

And it is the same with Merrick Garland – he is eminently qualified and probably a center-left addition to the Supreme Court. But Republicans cannot allow that “win” for Obama so they tear up 200 years of history in the meaning of “advise and consent” in the Constitution – they simply won’t do their job. For most of us, not doing our job will result in being fired. It’s time to do that to Republicans.