March 21, 2016 01:54 PM UTC

SCOTUS Stonewall Going South For GOP?

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• by: Colorado Pols

According to a new poll, The Hill reports, the decision by U.S. Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell to stonewall any Supreme Court nominee from President Barack Obama is shaping up to be a huge election-year mistake:

More than three-fourths of Americans say Senate Republicans are “playing politics” by refusing to take up President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, according to a Monmouth University Poll released Monday.

Overall, 77 percent of Americans say they think Republicans are “playing politics” by not allowing nominee Merrick Garland to get a hearing. That total includes 62 percent of surveyed Republicans…

“We think the important principle in the middle of this presidential election which is raging, is that the American people need to weigh in and decide who’s going to make this decision, not this lame-duck president on the way out the door, but the next president, next year,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Fox News Sunday.

From Monmouth University’s polling memo:

“The GOP leadership say they won’t hold hearings on Obama’s nomination in order to give the American people a voice in the process in November. The American people don’t buy that argument,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Just 16% of the public agrees that the Senate Republicans are refusing to consider Garland primarily to give the public a say in the nomination. Fully 77% think the GOP leadership is just playing politics. Those who see this stance as mainly a political ploy include large majorities of Democrats (86%), independents (80%), and Republicans (62%).

Obviously, these are not good numbers for anyone hoping to defend the GOP’s decision to stonewall Obama’s nominee–especially now that the nominee is a known commodity, and politically not someone against whom Republicans can reasonably keep up fever-pitch opposition.

Although the battle over confirming Supreme Court justices necessarily plays out in the Senate, the debate could have an impact on other downticket races this year. In Colorado’s CD-6 race Democratic candidate Morgan Carroll has made Republican intransigence an issue, taking up the “Do Your Job” call:

Washington Republicans have already pledged to block any Supreme Court nominee until after the election.

This kind of obstruction is unprecedented. And Morgan Carroll is demanding Congress act to consider Merrick Garland immediately.

To be fair, her GOP opponent Rep. Mike Coffman had already gone there:

After his own sweeping election victories, FDR badly overreached when he tried to shape the Supreme Court in a way that elevated his short term political priorities over the system he served. While the facts here are different, the specter of presidential overreach is just as real today…

Obviously, Rep. Coffman’s reference to FDR’s “court packing” scheme of 1937 is ridiculous, and simply noting “the facts here are different” (seriously?) doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. But the point is this: just like on immigration or abortion, Coffman has cast his lot on a high-visibility issue with the side a majority of his constituents in swing CD-6 do not agree with.

And no one can get away with that forever.