[EL] J. Gorsuch Will Be Awful on #SCOTUS for Progressives. Democrats Should Not Filibuster Him

[Terry Martin]

With all the charges that our legislative leaders were apparently motivated
by distaste of the former 44th president, let's not obscure that
ideological balance on the court is the critical issue, and came into play
at a time when Americans were literally months away from selecting their
new chief executive (potentially signaling a different ideological
preference). As was pointed out above, the text of the Constitution directs
the "advice and consent" to the Senate, and does not specify how this will
be carried out, much less command that the Senate give full hearing to a
particular nominee or even that it be completed during the term of a
particular president, any more than it tells the president the ideological
position of the nominee he must select. Had President Obama selected a
nominee in the mold of the late Justice Scalia, perhaps their advice would
have been "great choice" and proceeded to consent. It is possible also that
they genuinely wanted to see how the election would turn out and decided to
exercise their powers in such a way out of a desire to reflect the popular
will in the judiciary. The question will now be resolved through the
political process, as it should.
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