Shaun Kenney | Politics and Religion in Virginia's Public Square


Thursday, September 15, 2005 Roberts wins the battle... There's some speculation now that Roberts will not be vigorously opposed by Democrats in the Senate. Why? Because Roberts' nomination to SCOTUS isn't a swing vote, and therefore nowhere near as critical as replacing Justice O'Connor: In 1986, Democrats and liberal activists launched an intensive campaign to block the nomination of Rehnquist, then an associate justice, to become chief justice. The attempt failed 65-to-33 in the GOP-controlled Senate, and Rehnquist moved to the center seat on the high court. But the anti-Rehnquist drive left critics inside and outside the Senate too spent to mount a vigorous campaign against the next nominee, Antonin Scalia, who is even more conservative than Rehnquist. The vote for Justice Scalia was unanimous. 'After the vote [on Rehnquist], the Senate didn't have the appetite for another big fight,' says activist Nan Aron, president of Alliance for Justice. 'There's a huge temptation to be on to the next nomination, but a vote for Roberts is voting your fears that the next one is going to be worse.' By the end of the second day of questioning, with no smoking guns or 'gotcha' moments in sight, the swarm of activists on both sides of these hearings began quietly talking about the next nomination. 'Many of the questions Democrats asked by the second day [of the hearings] were signals for the next candidate,' says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University. 'By Wednesday afternoon, the Democrats and [interest] groups were beginning to refocus, to save energy. You can't always appear in the public eye as just an aggressor.' And so there's political calculus in the mix after all. If President Bush announces a new nominee for the Supreme Court, that is when the Democrats will strike and strike hard. Call me crazy, but this might be just the thing the Democrats need to pull their party together. It's a moment where liberals and self-styled "progressives" (regressives is a better term) get to sit around the campfire and ask the tough question "Just what do we really believe?" With Leahy, Biden, Feinstein, Schumer, Kennedy (the bad one) and Feingold directing this discussion, I think we all know where they'll let their ideological litmus test go -- to the left and in a big, big way. Perhaps my prediction of a rejuvenated Democratic Party centered around the Dean fringe might be off? It would certainly spell doom for centrist Democrats like Clinton and Warner (much like moderates within the GOP), but if this we get a good fight for the next Supreme Court nominee, be forewarned. Finding another John Roberts is a tall order, and the liberals will not be kind this time around. posted by Shaun Kenney \| 9/15/2005 03:18:00 PM \| 1 comments 1 Comments: At 12:18 PM, starrsoft said... Heh. Everytime I hear the crap that the outgoing justices need to be replaced with someone of identical ideology, I remember this ScrappleFace post... Post a Comment Home
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