Supreme Court vacancy watch Day 250: Justice delayed, and delayed, and delayed…
It's Friday, October 21, and Day 250 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell decided no nominee would get any Senate attention: No meetings, no hearings, no votes. It's also Day 219 since Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama to fill that vacancy.
While Senate Republicans are off trying to save their political asses, this is the ongoing result of their obstruction.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is offering new evidence that the short-handed court is having trouble getting its work done.The justices have yet to schedule three cases for arguments that were granted full review in January, about a month before Justice Antonin Scalia died. The cases involve separation of church and state, class-action lawsuits and property rights, issues that often split liberal and conservative justices.
Those were likely cases Scalia was instrumental in convincing three other justices to hear, since it takes just four to agree to take a case. We'll never know for sure, because the court doesn't make those votes public. With Scalia there, a right-wing decision was guaranteed. Now the reduced court is almost certain to deadlock on these cases. So they're just putting off hearing them until the eventual time—possibly as far away as March, longer if John McCain has his way—that they've got a full court.
This is not sustainable. Had Republicans any principle at all, they'd recognize that. But they'd rather break everything than allow the country to function.
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