From the White House to the Capitol to the campaign trail, the entire Democratic power structure mobilized this week to break through Republican opposition and clear a path for President Barack Obama to name a Supreme Court successor to Justice Antonin Scalia.
Obama — enticed by a history-altering opportunity — telephoned senators and pulled one aside on Wednesday, took to the Internet to detail his “careful deliberation” over potential nominees, and reproached Republicans for siding with “extreme” elements in their party. Hillary Clinton rallied African-American voters in South Carolina. Democratic leaders in the Capitol pressed the White House to name a nominee quickly, and the Democratic National Committee rallied liberal pressure groups.
In what appeared to be a political feint, one potential nominee’s name leaked out, Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, a candidate seemingly calculated to demonstrate the depths of Republican obstreperousness. The president invited senior Republicans and Democrats to the White House Thursday to discuss the process, then postponed the meeting Wednesday night after it became clear Republicans were unlikely to show.
Obama: GOP being 'pretty sheepish about it'
Obama insisted that in private conversations, Republican bluster was tempered. “They’re pretty sheepish about it,” he said.
Hours later, Obama approached Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, after a signing ceremony for a piece of trade legislation in the Oval Office, to make his case in person to a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Obama “affirmed his commitment to name an individual to the bench who is eminently qualified and deserving of a thorough and fair confirmation process by the Senate,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
“I recognize the politics are hard for them, because the easier thing to do is to give in to the most extreme voices within their party and stand pat and do nothing, but that’s not our job,” Obama said in the Oval Office, taking nine minutes at the end of a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan to insist on his right to advance a nominee to the nation’s highest court. “Our job is to fulfill our constitutional duties.”
Harry Reid: 'Find somebody quickly'
On Capitol Hill, Democrats pressed the White House to put forward a nominee quickly. “I want him to do it — find somebody quickly, get vetted and get it to us,” Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said of Obama in an interview.
Obama gave no hint that he was ready to do so, but Democrats began orchestrating a campaign of political pressure, which at a minimum could animate the Democratic base ahead of the November elections, officials privately said.
The leaking of Sandoval’s name appeared to be part of that effort. Senate Republicans said the governor’s party affiliation made no difference — they would not even consider any nominee put forward by Obama. That only amplified Democratic rhetoric. “I am sorry the Republicans are treating even one of their own that way,” Reid said.
Clinton: 'Let's support the president'
In South Carolina, Clinton joined the effort Wednesday in an address to the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, a leading membership society for African-American women. “We must make the Supreme Court a voting issue,” she said. “Let’s put pressure on the Senate, let’s support the president. Let’s see if we can’t find a handful of Republicans who will do their duty.”
The Democratic National Committee, which has launched a media campaign around the Supreme Court vacancy using the hashtag #FillTheSeat, organized a conference call on Wednesday with abortion rights supporters to emphasize the importance of allowing Obama to name the next justice. “This is an issue that has to be elevated because it affects all of our priorities,” said Luis Miranda, the committee’s communications director, noting that similar calls each day this week focused on gay rights, voting rights, and health care. “There’s a problem for Republicans being the party of obstruction, and we need to shine a spotlight on the fact that they’re trying to make the Supreme Court as dysfunctional as the Congress has been.”
Someone 'eminently qualified'
In a guest post on SCOTUSblog, a website that covers the Supreme Court, Obama offered a window into his selection process, saying he was seeking a justice with “a keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook.”
The person would be “eminently qualified,” Obama wrote, and someone who “recognizes the limits of the judiciary’s role,” without an ideological agenda.
“It’s the kind of life experience earned outside the classroom and the courtroom; experience that suggests he or she views the law not only as an intellectual exercise, but also grasps the way it affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times,” the president wrote.
Obama says blockade unsustainable
Obama predicted that Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and other Republicans would not be able to sustain their refusal to acknowledge or act on his nominee, adding that in his private conversations with some of them on the matter, it was clear to him that they were not comfortable with that stance. He added, “I think it will be very difficult for Mr. McConnell to explain, if the public concludes that this person is very well qualified, that the Senate should stand in the way simply for political reasons.”
A meeting with the president?
But in a mark of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the election-year Supreme Court dispute, even the traditional White House meeting to begin planning for the confirmation process took on an air of controversy. Obama on Monday invited McConnell and the Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, for a visit Thursday this week along with Reid and the senior Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont. By Wednesday night, the White House was forced to postpone the meeting until next week.
McConnell won't bend
Aides to McConnell and Grassley said they were working to find a mutually convenient time to meet, but that McConnell would use the session to reiterate that the president’s court nomination will not go forward. “The leader welcomes the opportunity to reiterate to the president directly that the American people will be heard on this matter, and the nomination will be determined by whoever wins the presidency in the fall,” McConnell’s spokesman, Don Stewart, said.
Democrats argued that Republican tactics demonstrated disrespect for Obama. “They have never believed in the legitimacy of this president,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
About the Author
