Supreme Court's Future Could Go to the Voters
The White House announced that President Barack Obama will nominate a replacement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, among other Republicans, demanded that the decision be left to the next president -- who they, of course, hope will be a Republican.
Suddenly the vacancy turns the future of all three branches of government into a presidential election year issue.
That may well prove to be a big favor to the Democrats in a year that so far has not brought out nearly as robust of a voter turnout as Republicans have seen. As much as Obama excited liberals eight years ago, anger at Obama now energizes conservatives.
That also could be good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who looks barely like the Democratic presidential frontrunner as "democratic socialist" Sen. Bernie Sanders has mounted a surprisingly successful campaign.
Republican stubbornness and the high stakes involved with a lifetime appointment to a Supreme Court seat gives Clinton something her campaign so far has oddly lacked: a theme.
Think about it. Donald Trump has "Make America Great Again." Sanders has his battle to take back the real America from "the millionaires and billionaires." Clinton? So far, her big theme boils down to a third term, more or less, for Obama's policies.
Against the big "revolution" promised by Sanders, she offers sermons on pragmatism -- incremental changes that "get things done," even if they are not all that you might dream of doing.
Trouble is, it is nowhere near as easy to motivate people to vote by offering pragmatism as it is to offer revolution, even when the details of your revolution leave a lot of unanswered questions -- like how it is to be paid for.
With that in mind, it would have been a wiser strategy for Republicans to play along with the process in the way it usually has been done. Invite the president to send a nominee and then drag your heels in the vetting process. Then, after running down the clock, reject the nominee and force the process to start over again.
But today's generation of Republican lawmakers and their party's base don't want to hear about subtleties. As a result, they may stir the sort of backlash from previously apathetic liberals that cost Republicans dearly in 2012.
History could repeat itself, once liberals remember what's at stake: The future of civil rights, abortion rights, press freedom, gun laws -- you name it. As Justice Marshall said, the Constitution contains the tools for its own improvement. One of those tools is our right to vote. Use it or lose it.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
