The Reid Option

For John, BLUF:  The Democrats are about to reach a crunch point, although they will try to hang it around Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's neck.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Doesn't anybody know how to play this game?

Or as Casey Stengel, while managing the New York Mets on their way to a 40-120 season in 1962, reportedly asked, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

This is from The Washington Examiner and Mr Michael Barone.

He is talking about the US Senate and where it is headed.  Here is one side of the issue, the nomination of Neil Garland by President Trump, after the Republicans refused to have hearings on President Obama's Merrick Garland nomination:

Joe Biden in 1992 and Charles Schumer in 2007 argued that no nominee should be approved in a presidential election year.  That makes sense in an era when Supreme Court decides partisan issues like abortion, gun control and campaign finance.  Give the voters a chance to weigh in. . . .

So, in a way the Democrats are not being honest with this issue of Neil Garland.

At the same time there is the issue of the Reid Option.  When he was the Senate Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid suppressed the Filibuster for certain Presidential nominations.♠  Now that option is open to the Republicans, with a precedent, from the Democrats.

Right now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is threatening to Filibuster the nomination of Judge Neil Garland to the US Supreme Court.♥♦  Perhaps Senator Schumer thinks the Republicans are in disarray and will buckle under a Filibuster or Filibuster threat.  Maybe he is hoping to placate the Progressives by saying "I tried as long as I could."  Maybe he plans to fold his hand at the last minute.  However, that doesn't account for Senators like our Senior Senator, Elizabeth Warren.  She could beam off on her own and talk this nomination to death or to the point her Senate Colleagues grow tired of her.

This is still an open question.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  It is easy to kill the Filibuster.  It just takes a majority vote.  The Filibuster survives because the Senators on all sides see a value to it.  It is a way of protecting minority rights.
♥  I have thought that Senator Schumer, a New Yorker, would be able to cut deals with President Trump, a New Yorker.  It appears that the loss in November was so traumatic that there can be no compromises.  This does not bode well for the Continuing Resolution coming due 28 April.  This is when unfinished appropriation bills for fiscal year 2017 expire.
♦  I have thought that the defeat of any Trump nominee to the US Supreme Court is not, at this point, the end of the world.  But, if he loses on this, Senate Majority Leader McConnell will have to pull a win somewhere else to maintain his control of the US Senate.