Scalia found dead at West Texas Ranch

[lustindarkness]

What if you you are just lazy and looking for a break to play solitaire on your phone? Is sitting down to pee OK? Asking for a friend.

[derspiess]

I'd goof on your usual castration complex-fueled misogyny, but she's got bigger stones than you anyway.

No idea what this is supposed to mean.  Are you just projecting?

Reallly is a shame how your mother made you pee sitting down, though.  That had to make the locker room very difficult.

Nah, the stalls had doors.  As far as anyone knew I was dropping a deuce.

[DontSayBanana]

Could this Sandoval fellow refuse the nomination? Or you just don't do that?

Yes, nominees can and have withdrawn themselves- most recent I can find is Dedo Adegbile, who withdrew under the likely threat that the Senate wouldn't confirm him.

Sandoval's already done so, saying he wouldn't accept the nomination: http://blackchristiannews.com/2016/02/republican-nevada-governor-sandoval-withdraws-name-from-white-house-supreme-court-consideration/

I'd personally love to see this go to court, as the Republicans have explicitly made this not about the qualifications of an individual nominee, but (again, explicitly) to deprive Obama of his nomination privileges under the Constitution.  It's certainly in bad faith, and for a bunch of people who love to preach about their love of the "spirit of the Constitution," this is a textbook example of "letter of the law, not spirit of the law."

[Eddie Teach]

What they'll say to the press and what they'll say to the court are different matters. Unless you want the court to rule on a bunch of hearsay...

[grumbler]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.  I think that whether Senators can get away with being partisan hacks is always going to be left to the voters.

I just think it is funny that, for Republicans, Joe Biden (of all people!) has replaced Ronald Reagan as their patron saint and model.  That alone makes all of this worthwhile.

[DontSayBanana]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.  I think that whether Senators can get away with being partisan hacks is always going to be left to the voters.

I just think it is funny that, for Republicans, Joe Biden (of all people!) has replaced Ronald Reagan as their patron saint and model.  That alone makes all of this worthwhile.

I'm not so sure, since the Senate is so heavily intertwined with all procedural aspects of the country's operation.  Their budget squabbles in particular have had noticeable, dramatic effects on the day-to-day of the country.

In theory, the three branches of government are approximately equal in power, but in practice, the legislature is the only arm that has mechanisms to overrule both other branches of government (pushing for new amendments to the Constitution in the case of unfavorable results in the judicial branch, veto override in the case of unfavorable results at the executive branch).

Not only does it seem to me that they're too integral to not recognize an affirmative duty to govern, with the increasing party-driven gridlock and increasingly frustrated politicians we're seeing lately, I think it's also getting more likely that we're going to see this taken to court (by either a senator or president whose business is being blocked as a matter of procedure) sooner rather than later.

[crazy canuck]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.

There isn't an obligation to fulfill the duties of their office?

[Malthus]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.

There isn't an obligation to fulfill the duties of their office?

Its the sort of thing that ought to be subject of one of the old prerogative writs, like Mandamus. Similar things have been tried at the state level in the US.

http://floridapolitics.com/archives/182259-session-is-over-supreme-court-rules-against-senate-ds

No clue if this would work against the US Senate.

[grumbler]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.

There isn't an obligation to fulfill the duties of their office?

They take an oath to that effect, but they get to decide what the duties of their office are.

[CountDeMoney]

I'd goof on your usual castration complex-fueled misogyny, but she's got bigger stones than you anyway.

No idea what this is supposed to mean.  Are you just projecting?

The fact that you'd make a sexist crack about her "emotions taking over" when she's arguably been the only candidate this entire election campaign that hasn't had a meltdown, tantrum or any thing remotely related to an emotional outburst is just par for the course of your usual emasculation anxiety, which you insist on exhibiting at every turn. 

[dps]

I don't think that any court would find that the Senate has a positive duty to participate in governing the country.

There isn't an obligation to fulfill the duties of their office?

Its the sort of thing that ought to be subject of one of the old prerogative writs, like Mandamus. Similar things have been tried at the state level in the US.

http://floridapolitics.com/archives/182259-session-is-over-supreme-court-rules-against-senate-ds

No clue if this would work against the US Senate.

Well, I suppose the first thing we should note about that case is that the court ruled unanimously against granting the writ, even though 5 of the justices agree that the Florida House violated the Florida constitution in the way in which they ended the session.  And even if the writ had been granted, it would have only compelled the House to remain in session--it wouldn't have compelled them to act on any particular business,  they could have just sat on their hands until May 1st.

Beyond that, in the extremely unlikely case that the Federal courts would actually compel the Senate to act on a nominee put forward by the President, the Senate would simply reject the nomination;  the courts certainly wouldn't have any authority to direct the Senate to vote in a certain way.  To do so would, in effect, transfer the Senate's power to confirm or reject Presidential appointments to the courts.

[Martinus]

I have to agree with dps. No matter how you slice it, ultimately the Senate has a power to achieve the same results through constitutional means so how exactly they do it does not really matter. ultimately they bear political responsibility, not judicial one.

[Valmy]

Well yeah you expect the Senate to reject or not act on whatever it wants to. It is accountable to its voters if it does.

I just reject the notion there is a Constitutional or Rules requirement for the President to not nominate a new USSC judge.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would dispute the constitution lays out three equal branches of government. It lays out three separate branches of government, and specifies checks and balances between them. However I think on paper the legislative is vastly more powerful than the other two. The big limitation on the legislature it is made up of diffuse membership, which prevents it from easily summoning forth the might of its power. But I would note even in the era of the Imperial Presidency (so arguably post-Franklin Roosevelt) when the legislature was united in action, the President left office.

The legislature has the power to, by statute, define the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (and most of the materially important cases the Supreme Court hears are in its appellate jurisdiction), it could probably by statute define term limits for Supreme Court justices, it can certainly modify the size of the Supreme Court at whim, it by statute has created all courts in the United States. In theory if the legislature had never passed the Judiciary Act of 1789 we wouldn't even have Federal courts, so in many ways the judicial branch is the weakest. The vast amount of power the Supreme Court has largely developed out of thin air and exists only because there is broad public agreement it's a good thing, but there are genuine doubts about how the Supreme Court could force the hand of the legislature to do something. The legislature normally isn't in a position to ignore Supreme Court rulings because most of its rulings that strike at legislation declare a law unconstitutional and then the executive branch obviously wouldn't execute or recognize that law any longer. But if the legislature was hit with a writ of mandamus to vote on Obama's nominees, I speculate it could simply ignore it. What recourse would the court have? The recourse for a President ignoring a Supreme Court order is political--if it pisses people off enough he could end up impeached, by the legislature. But what "consequence" could the court bring to bear on the legislature? Very little, I suspect. And even the President is immune from consequence when his ignoring the judiciary is politically accepted (as happened a few times in the 19th century, notably during the administrations of Lincoln and Jackson.)

Also the legislature aside from holding impeachment power over both the judiciary and the executive, could in theory reduce the President to little more than a figurehead through onerous legislation, creation of independent executive bodies, starving the executive of funding if it got out of line, and impeaching Presidents who tried to reassert power. That's highly theoretical though, the practical reality today is I believe the executive is the most powerful of the three branches. The large body of bureaucracy, the complexity of laws requiring a lot of interpretation by bureaucrats, the degree to which Congress has been weak and divided for several generations now means that the executive (at large, and the President himself) have taken on a lot of powers probably outside the original intent of the constitution and outside strictly the laws Congress has passed.

[derspiess]

The fact that you'd make a sexist crack about her "emotions taking over" when she's arguably been the only candidate this entire election campaign that hasn't had a meltdown, tantrum or any thing remotely related to an emotional outburst is just par for the course of your usual emasculation anxiety, which you insist on exhibiting at every turn. 

What drove my remark was not some kind of imaginary "castration complex" but rather a desire to get a reaction out of you.  Anywho, I would agree that she's been fairly sedate in this primary-- practically robotic.  To go with that, her attempts at humor have been painfully lame.  Will be interesting to see how she reacts once Trump starts going after her.