Feb. 16--At the National Review online, staff writer David French asks, "Does any sentient human being believe that if the Democrats had the Senate majority in the final year of a conservative president's second term -- and (liberal U.S. Supreme Court) Justice (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg's seat came open -- they would approve any nominee from that president?"
To which I reply no, probably not.
But at the same time, does any sentient human being believe that if Republican Sen. John McCain had beaten Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 election and was now nearing the end of his second term, the GOP would be insisting on a nearly yearlong delay in naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, the late conservative stalwart on the court, so that voters in November's election could decide which party they want to make that pick?
Again, probably not.
In short, does any sentient human being believe that principle, not ideology, is what explains the corners to which most of us have rushed in the wake of Scalia's unexpected death Saturday?
I won't bother to repeat the Republican arguments for waiting to let the next president pick Scalia's replacement and the Democratic arguments for allowing Obama to do so. You've read them by now.
You've likely also read archival quotes from the President George W. Bush era illustrating that Republican and Democratic leaders then had nearly opposite views of presidential prerogative and Senate obstructionism from the views they're espousing today.
It's like the ever-shifting hypocrisy on the filibuster -- the Senate rule requiring a three-fifths supermajority for most legislation to pass.
When your side is narrowly in the minority, as the Democrats are now, the filibuster is a necessary check on majoritarian passion and legislative overreach. But when your side holds a narrow majority, as the Democrats did in the previous Congress, it's a loophole that thwarts the will of the people and obstructs progress.
Which brings me to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who will be delivering his fiscal year 2017 budget address Wednesday in Springfield even though Illinois still doesn't have a budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in late June.
Rauner, a Republican, has been refusing to negotiate a spending plan until the Democrats who control the General Assembly agree to several key items on his "turnaround agenda."
