[extropy-chat] Re: SCOTUS rulings and replacements

[Joseph Bloch]

Brett Paatsch wrote:

> Joseph Bloch wrote:
>
> [I wrote]
>
>>> I'm boning up my Australian-based understanding of the
>>> SCOTUS, now that Sandra Day O Connor has retired and
>>> President G W B will get a shot at first her replacement and
>>> then likely, pretty soon given his health and age, Rehquirst's) ?
>>
>>
>>
>> It's more than a "shot"; GWB will nominate a replacement, and the 
>> Senate judiciary committee will vote on him or her. If that nominee 
>> is voted down, GWB will name another, and so on. Ditto for a 
>> replacement for Rehnqist, although I personally think he won't retire 
>> until a replacement for O'Connor has been confirmed. Either way, 
>> President Bush nominates the successor; if his first choice isn't 
>> confirmed, he just keeps nominating someone until they are confirmed.
>
>
> Does the judiciary committee have to have grounds for voting a
> nomination down, or it is simply that as both the nomination and the
> voting down of it (potentially) will take place transparently with the
> American public watching (so neither side wants to be seen to be
> blatantly self serving)?


The committee votes according to the whims and wishes of its members. 
There's no standard of "grounds" that needs to be held.

>
> I don't really get what the judiciary committee does in relation to
> what the Senate does. Does the judiciary committee perhaps conduct
> inquiries for a time until say the President hurrumphs and says "dammit
> stop delaying, put my nominee to the vote of the Senate and lets
> see if we can smoke out some anti-voter filibusterers," or what?


As a rule, if any issue (such as the nomination for a Supreme Court 
Justice) does not get a positive vote by the appropriate committee 
(i.e., make a positive recommendation), the Senate as a whole does not 
conduct a vote. There have been very rare exceptions (and none involving 
the judiciary committee in particular that I'm aware of, but I'm hardly 
a scholar of Senate history), but that's not really relevant in this 
case; enough Republican Senators would vote in favor of tradition and 
form that if the Senate leadership brought a nominee to a vote sans the 
recommendation of the committee, the nomination would be defeated.

The vote does not happen simultaneously. The President has no official 
say in when the Senate brings anything to a vote (although informal 
political pressure can always be applied, as in any system).

>
>> The REAL question is whether President Bush's candidate will be so 
>> conservative as to trigger a showdown with a Democrat filibuster, or 
>> moderate enough to avoid it and still not disaffect his conservative 
>> base. We won't know that until July 8th, when he gets back from the 
>> G8 Summit and makes his nominee known.
>
>
> That is certainly interesting.  It is just the Senate that votes 
> though isn't
> it?


Correct; once the committee has given its recommendation.


>
> (I do realise that I could find this stuff out myself by Googling, and
> probably will, but I thought if some US'ians saw how much this stuff
> interests some of us that don't even live there, then they might discover
> an interest in their own systems as well.  The Supreme Court is one
> of the real hubs of civilizing, or otherwise, power not just in the US
> but in the world.  It may be on a par with, or at more likely at present
> given the might of the US, even more powerful than the UN Security
> Council).


I doubt you will maintain that view of the Supreme Court if they 
suddenly start handing down decisions that are contrary to your 
political views. Like, say, if another Justice Scalia is appointed to 
fill O'Connor's vacancy. Then it will doubtless replace George Bush as 
the seed of evil in the world.

Joseph