Missourian
Diamond Member
Democrats on the committee have gone so far as to dispense with long-established Senate decorum and rules in order to fire up their base heading into the November midterm elections.
It’s a sad commentary that in retrospect, now-Justice Elena Kagan’s confirmation in 2010 seems like something from a different era, when senators on both sides of the aisle took the vetting process for the highest court in the land seriously.
Now it changes.
At the time, then-Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont called on all members of the committee to be fair during the hearings and abstain from questioning the integrity or independence of President Obama’s nominee.
Republicans did just that, prompting Kagan to publicly thank then-Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Senate Republicans for giving her “such respectful and expeditious consideration.”
During this week’s hearing – starting from the moment Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced Judge Kavanaugh and his family – the proceedings were interrupted by one Democratic senator after another, demanding a vote to delay the hearing. Then, like clockwork, came the shouts of protesters in the crowd.
If these childish antics and partisan outbursts appeared to be a well-coordinated effort on the part of Democrats to obstruct the confirmation of Kavanaugh, it’s because they were.
News organizations reported that on the eve of the hearing, Judiciary Committee Democrats hosted a conference call with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, and plotted a “protest strategy” to disrupt the proceedings.
What changed?
Simple. What the Republicans did to Garland. Start there.
What Biden did to Garland. It couldn't have been accomplished without him.