Would Democrats confirm a "Kavanaugh"?

[quadtetra]

Suppose Obama or Hillary Clinton nominated a progressive version of Kavanaugh, (someone like Eric Schneiderman comes to mind). The Senate was under Dem control with midterms coming up. It is just like the current situation but with parties reversed.

Then right after being nominated, serious allegations came up regarding Schneiderman. What happens next?

Note that if he fails, the Democrats can only confirm in lame duck session and that nominee's legitimacy might be questioned if the upcoming Senate is Republican controlled.

So what should happen next?

[LenaBaby61]

1. Would Democrats confirm a "Kavanaugh"?

A Dem president in today's world would never put someone as wholly unqualified onto the Supreme Court as Kavanaugh.

[brewens]

2. I doubt it. I don't think we've even ever nominated a political hack like Kavanaugh.

We wouldn't be so desperate to get our guy in there in the first place. It wouldn't be that big of a deal to drop our guy and select another. They want Kavanaugh partly for the same reason Putin wanted his bitch elected president. Someone owns his ass over the gambling debt and whatever other dirt they have on him. He gets on the court and they control the seat.

[OnDoutside]

3. Next ? WHEN he is confirmed, Democrats must use the rage to target the Senate, and stem any future

SC leakage. They must also state loud and clear, that they will hold the investigation into Kavanagh that was denied by the Republicans, exposing the truth about his perjury.

[PoorMonger]

4. Nope.

Don’t think so. Not that Dems are above being shitty in private life, but your Eric Schniderman example speaks to this question in itself. When credible accusations were leveled against him — he did the sensible thing and resigned.

If something awful came out about a Dem nominee for the court they would likely withdraw their own name and I certainly don’t think that our elected Senators would be going all out for them. The majority of Dem voters would be rightly up in arms and asking for a new pick.

This is similar to the oft asked hypothetical about a Democratic Trump. I don’t think one would gain traction amongst the base because for one , we as a general rule , value facts.

[JI7]

5. same thing that actually happened to Schneiderman. they called for him to step down and he did

and if he didn't whoever was the President would just nominate someone else.

[quadtetra]

6. But would Democrats be willing to confirm in lame duck?

Consensus so far suggests that "Schneiderman" would be dropped and someone else nominated. But here is the thing. What if Dems lose the Senate in midterms? The Republicans would go all out to delegitimize a lame duck confirmation.

Now McConnell would just ignore the criticism and confirm in lame duck anyway.

But would the Dems have the same resolve?

[torius]

7. They've got to really vet people

so that there are no surprises. They should devote effort to checking out social media, question them about all past relationships back to age 2, do a polygraph... don't rely on some crappy FBI-type background check.

[lapfog_1]

9. yes... like getting a particular security clearance to work at a TLA

which, in my case, was known as "The Brown Company" aka "the puzzle palace".

The security check went back to pre-school age... all of my grade school teachers (who were still alive), middle school kids and teachers, high school, university roommates and professors... neighbors, all of my employers and co-workers, clubs I belonged to, etc, etc, etc.

[torius]

10. Wow!

If the Repugs did those, they would never be able to nominate anyone.

[lapfog_1]

11. while many repukes have shady pasts

I suspect that a large number of judges on the Federalist Society "list" would pass with flying colors.

For my background check, they mostly wanted to make sure that I couldn't be compromised... so the fact that I smoked weed a few times in college wasn't at all fatal to my security clearance... only if I lied about it to the investigators would be fatal.

However, that said, some crimes like sexual assault I think would be fatal to a background check.

I also think the repukes in the Senate and even the Federalist Society knew that Kavanaugh would be problematic even before he was nominated... which is why his nomination was not warmly received by McTurtle and his name didn't appear on the top list of Federalist Society picks.

The ONLY reason Trump went with Kav was Kav's views on Presidential powers and investigating crimes committed by the President.

[NanceGreggs]

8. In exactly the same situation as with Kavanaugh?

The Democrats would stand by the nominee as long as they were sure of his innocence.

How would they determine that innocence? By deciding that a full investigation into the allegations is warranted. If the nominee scoffs at the idea, tries to evade questions, does everything in his power to avoid his past being looked into – they have their answer.

After assessing that the nominee is probably guilty given his behaviour, they would tell him to withdraw his name, or have the president withdraw his nomination.

The Democrats actually care about the country. They would never put someone on the Supreme Court if they had even a scintilla of doubt about his character.

The Republicans, on the other hand, don’t care. They know Kavanaugh is guilty – his own behaviour has left no doubt. They also know he has perjured himself on many occasions, and his performance last Thursday clearly demonstrated that he is totally unfit for the SCOTUS.

But they just don’t give a fuck. My guess is that Kavanaugh was bought and paid for – a party operative who will always see things their way, and will render decisions accordingly. They’re determined to get their money’s worth.

There are some Democrats who I really dislike. But I can’t think of a single Dem who would sink as low as the Republicans have sunk.

[DFW]

12. Democrats wouldn't nominate a Kavanaugh these days

Nasty frat boys usually don't even make the long list for SCOTUS, much less the short list--look at the picks of the last two Democratic presidents. Look at Obama's three nominees. Do you think a president Hillary, after Bill's brilliant two choices and Obama's two brilliant choices (that were given the courtesy of consideration), if there were a list of 200 possibles, would have placed someone like Kavanaugh any higher on the list than somewhere around #21,753?

[alarimer]

13. They would do their due diligence and not nominate him to begin with.

The Republicans knew this about Kavanaugh and they didn’t care.

A Democrat or a decent Republican would ask their nominee to withdraw. It’s actually happened before. Some nominee of Clinton’s had to withdraw because she didn’t pay her nanny’s SS taxes. Not Supreme Court, some other office.