Would a SCOTUS vacancy result in gridlock in a GOP-controlled Senate?
A U.S. Supreme Court vacancy in a GOP-controlled Senate could result in nomination gridlock and 4-4 decisions by an eight-member court, some court watchers contend.
Or not. The New Republic considers the possibilities. “Given the already toxic atmosphere in Congress over the politicization of the judiciary,” legal affairs editor Jeffrey Rosen writes for TNR, “some scholars are already predicting that Republicans will refuse to schedule hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees if they’re not ‘acceptable’ to the GOP.” Among them is Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, who told Talking Points Memo that a Republican Senate would “shut the door” on judicial and executive nominations.
The New Republic considers both sides of the debate. The story says that, since World War II, Supreme Court vacancies have not produced partisan gridlock. (It was a Democratic Senate that filibustered a Democratic president’s nomination of Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice.) Not every Supreme Court nominee was successful, as in the case of Robert Bork, but acceptable replacements were found, the story says. And public pressure could spur the Senate to act.
“On the other hand,” the story says, “there’s no particular grounds for optimism with a Democratic president and Republican Senate. With their vitriolic obstruction throughout the Obama presidency, including a fight over the debt ceiling and a government shutdown, some Senate Republicans have shown a willingness to paralyze the basic functions of government—and might be comfortable with an evenly divided Court of eight justices.”
