Republicans and McConnell’s Lies

Nine Supreme Court vacancies in place during election years in SCOTUS’s post – Civil War era. It is simple, Republicans as led by McConnell lied to the American people. McConnell would call out to Democrats stating “the American voters” want truthful politicians. Has McConnell been truthful to “the American People?”

2016: McConnell’s Lies: “I believe the overwhelming view of the Republican Conference in the Senate is that this nomination should not be filled, this vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck president.

The American people are perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let’s give them a voice. Let’s let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be.”

“All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year.”

There is no such tradition. The table (Brookings) shows the nine Supreme Court vacancies in place during election years in the Court’s post-Civil War era – once Congress stabilized the Court’s membership at nine and the justices largely stopped serving as trial judges in the old circuit courts. Furthermore, McConnell and Republicans care less able the American people. It is the 1-percenters Republicans care about.

2020 McConnell’s Lies:: “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite – party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

From the 1890s until the 1950s there were only unified governments and offers no test of whether divided government would have confirmed them. McConnell lies again. Second, McConnell does not include the 1880s’ when there were two divided-government confirmations. There were also two more recent divided-government vacancies which were filled by a divided Senate:

– In 1988, the Democratic-majority Senate voted 97-0 to confirm Justice Kennedy (after the 1987 rejection of the controversial Bork nomination).
– In 1956, Eisenhower made an uncontested October recess appointment of Justice Brennan. Had the Senate been in session, it would have confirmed a Brennan nomination as it did early in 1957.

The problem is simple. Republicans should own up to McConnell’s lies in 2016 and his present lie in 2020 they are using to justify their actions in support of trump. In 2016, they established a basis for their actions (by lying) which they now want to ignore in 2020. This is not about a process. It is about politics where none existed before historically and the subsequent lies to change it for political advantage.

McConnell’s Fabricated History to support his claims.