To: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK-1), Sen. Richard Shelby (AL-1), Sen. John Boozman (AR-1), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-1), Sen. Rick Scott (FL-2), Sen. John Isakson (GA-1), Sen. Charles Grassley (IA-1), Sen. Michael Crapo (ID-1), Sen. Tammy Duckworth...
If Fourth-Year Presidents Shouldn't Do Things, How About Sixth-Year Senators?
Since you believe that President Obama can't nominate a Supreme Justice in the last year of his term, we demand that you recuse yourself from voting in committee or on the Senate floor in this, the last year of your term.
Why is this important?
This petition will go to all of the U.S. Senators who are in the last year of their six-year term and who have said they will not allow a vote to fill the Supreme Court vacancy because President Obama is in the last year of his term.
From the Huffington Post:
President Barack Obama is in the last year of his second term, Republican senators argue, so he should no longer have a say in something so important as who sits on the Supreme Court. Let's wait for the voters to weigh in this fall, they say.
But Obama isn't the only elected official in the last year of his term who has a key role in choosing the next justice, whose party may or may not hold onto his power post, and who generally makes consequential decisions.
The GOP logic seems to be that voters may have changed their minds about what sorts of leaders they want over the past three years, so rather than let Obama function for his full four-year term, the Senate should stall him. Beyond the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans have also refused to hold hearings on Obama's budget, and one senator had himself recorded throwing Obama's final proposal to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison base into the trash.
If after a mere three years, however, Obama has lost his mandate, what about those other elected officials who haven't gone before the voters in five years?
There are 34 senators serving the final years of their six-year terms. Ten of them are Democrats, and 24 are Republicans, including at least seven facing difficult re-election fights. One of those going before the voters this fall is Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in theory holds hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
The logic that says a president shouldn't be allowed to make a consequential appointment in his final year would seem to indicate those "lame duck" senators shouldn't be allowed to cast consequential votes. One might even suggest that argument is stronger against senators, who are one among one hundred, than against the singular president.
From the Huffington Post:
President Barack Obama is in the last year of his second term, Republican senators argue, so he should no longer have a say in something so important as who sits on the Supreme Court. Let's wait for the voters to weigh in this fall, they say.
But Obama isn't the only elected official in the last year of his term who has a key role in choosing the next justice, whose party may or may not hold onto his power post, and who generally makes consequential decisions.
The GOP logic seems to be that voters may have changed their minds about what sorts of leaders they want over the past three years, so rather than let Obama function for his full four-year term, the Senate should stall him. Beyond the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans have also refused to hold hearings on Obama's budget, and one senator had himself recorded throwing Obama's final proposal to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison base into the trash.
If after a mere three years, however, Obama has lost his mandate, what about those other elected officials who haven't gone before the voters in five years?
There are 34 senators serving the final years of their six-year terms. Ten of them are Democrats, and 24 are Republicans, including at least seven facing difficult re-election fights. One of those going before the voters this fall is Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which in theory holds hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
The logic that says a president shouldn't be allowed to make a consequential appointment in his final year would seem to indicate those "lame duck" senators shouldn't be allowed to cast consequential votes. One might even suggest that argument is stronger against senators, who are one among one hundred, than against the singular president.