Unless four Senate Republicans defect, and assuming no Democrat votes “aye,” Democrats will remain utterly powerless to stop President Trump’s third nomination to the Supreme Court.
That helplessness has emboldened prominent Democrats to entertain all sorts of long-term changes in retaliation, court-packing and abolishing the legislative filibuster being chief among them, and even a familiar short-term method: impeachment.
“I believe that, certainly, there has been an enormous amount of lawbreaking in the Trump administration,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at a recent press conference. “I believe that Attorney General Barr is unfit for office and that he has pursued potentially lawbreaking behavior.” She conceded, “That being said, these are procedures and decisions that are largely up to House Democratic leadership. But I believe that also we must consider, again, all of the tools available to our disposal and that all of these options should be entertained and on the table.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer nodded in agreement.
Speaking of House leadership, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the prospects of employing the impeachment strategy again. “Some have mentioned the possibility, if they try to push through a nominee in a lame-duck session, that you in the House could move to impeach President Trump or Attorney General Barr as a way of stalling and preventing the Senate from acting on this nomination,” he said.
“We have our options,” Pelosi responded. “We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.” She also said, “When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, it requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”
It probably doesn’t even need to be said, but suggesting that they might impeach the president or his attorney general because Trump nominated someone for the Supreme Court, under the vague guise that they have committed “an enormous amount of lawbreaking,” is buffoonish floundering.
Further, it doesn’t even make sense how impeachment could serve the goal of stalling the Senate’s confirmation process. The two sets of business occur in different chambers. Since the Constitution gives the Senate the power to conduct impeachment trials, a trial could delay things, which may be what Democrats are after. The Senate does have procedural rules for conducting impeachment trials, but Mitch McConnell could just as well decide not to conduct a full-scale trial, according to former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer, by seeking a rules change or by simply adjourning. In that case, impeachment would create buzz, but there’s no sure mechanism by which it prevents a judicial nominee’s approval if Republican leadership in the Senate sets its sights on seeing it through.
Say what you will about Republicans bucking courtesy, precedent, norms and all. Those arguments have some weight, considering what many Republicans said about filling Antonin Scalia’s seat with Merrick Garland (even granting that McConnell made a legitimate distinction about divided government) and considering what Sen. Lindsey Graham said in 2018 about the very situation in which we find ourselves. Still, Schumer’s contention that Republicans have “no right” to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat is way off. It’s not about rights.
Democrats will likely continue the talk about a full table of options and arrows in their quiver. It’s about all they can do at this point, other than drafting up impeachment articles. Who knows how seriously Democrats are actually considering impeachment? I can’t imagine very seriously, though they often surprise me. It would certainly give them something to do, but it’s no lifeboat.
