The retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer couldn’t have come at a better time for Joe Biden — if you listen to Biden’s allies on the left.
It’s a virtual certainty that Biden is going to name a black woman to the Supreme Court. Conventional wisdom says that considering Biden’s waning standing with black voters, the SCOTUS choice will almost certainly help.
Whether it does is hardly relevant to the notion that Biden will get some kind of “reset” out of the pick. Whoever he chooses will be the second coming of Joan of Arc or some other precedent-shattering figure according to the spin that will almost certainly surround the pick. But will choosing a black woman make voters forget the previous year of confusion, incompetence, and lies?
Want to get your party fired up ahead of the midterms as Republicans enjoy an enthusiasm advantage? A debate over the court — and especially one involving abortion — can do the trick.
Need to take some heat off Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.? A court battle when they’ve always voted for Biden’s judicial nominations could be what the doctor ordered.
Want to give the “Build Back Better” negotiations a little breathing room? A Supreme Court nomination is going to dominate everything else on Capitol Hill.
There will be no “abortion debate” with this nominee. It’s assumed the nominee will be pro-abortion, and Republicans know that naming a pro-choice candidate to the high court won’t change the political dynamic; there will still be a solid pro-life majority.
There may be other reasons a conservative majority wouldn’t overturn Roe, specifically, its standing as settled law and that dozens of other decisions not related to abortion but which cite Roe v Wade would be affected. But that’s a debate for lawyers, not politicians. The political debate on abortion won’t be affected by who Biden chooses.
As for Manchin and Sinema, the radicals have already set up the guillotine. The “heat” on those two politicians won’t lessen no matter how they vote on Biden’s SCOTUS nominee.
And “negotiations” over BBB are only about where the burial will be. Elements of the bill may survive but the idea of a two trillion dollar transformation of America is dead.
Yep. If it happens quickly Biden gets a needed “win’. BUT, the fact it happens far from Election Day means it’s not a late momentum shifter like Kavanaugh hearings were. https://t.co/LKuLIAHVMu
— Amy Walter (@amyewalter) January 26, 2022
It’s hard to find a “reset button” when the manure is hip-deep. The fact is, Guy Benson is correct. Depending on the kind of radical black woman Biden nominates, it’s likely that a handful of Republicans will vote “aye” to confirm — if only to keep the myth of bipartisanship alive.
Top officials at conservative judicial groups said they viewed the current landscape as less than conducive to a successful bare-knuckled confirmation fight. A Breyer retirement was long expected, Republicans do not control the Senate and, most importantly, a new justice would not shift the court’s ideological balance, let alone its majority.
“The stakes just aren’t quite as urgent — the left or the right” compared to the fight to replace the late Justice Ginsburg, said Josh Blackman, a law professor and a legal expert with the conservative Federalist Society and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. “This just seems more of a — it’s how many political points you can score.”
Biden Boosters in the media will tout the SCOTUS pick as the reset the president was looking for. And it may improve his poll numbers marginally.
But any long-term benefit is beyond him. It won’t change the disaster that’s coming for the Democrats next November.
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