{"id":47900,"date":"2017-10-17T09:21:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T09:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=47900"},"modified":"2017-10-17T09:21:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T09:21:00","slug":"trump-mcconnell-see-way-make-conservatives-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/politics\/trump-mcconnell-see-way-make-conservatives-happy.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump and McConnell See a Way to Make Conservatives Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump and McConnell See a Way to Make Conservatives Happy<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Trump and McConnell See a Way to Make Conservatives Happy:- Stymied legislatively, President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell are turning their attention to one way they can skirt Democratic roadblocks and mollify unhappy Republicans \u2014 by filling scores of federal court vacancies.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s surprise display of togetherness, both the president and Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, emphasized their shared desire to begin moving aggressively to install conservative jurists at the appeals and district court level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Focusing on judges has multiple advantages for both the president and Mr. McConnell. The courts are a longtime priority of conservative activists who have been grumbling about the failures of the Republican Congress, so a flurry of confirmations of nominees with known conservative views on cultural and government issues could quiet some complaints.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of changes in Senate practices instituted by Democrats in 2013, Republicans can now confirm judges on simple majority votes. That virtually guarantees success if enough time and effort are devoted to pushing the nominations through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. McConnell has also made clear his interest in eliminating the so-called blue slip, one last arcane procedural tool that Democrats have used to slow nominees in the Judiciary Committee. If he is successful in ending that Senate tradition, which gives a senator the right to block a judicial nominee in his or her state, it could greatly accelerate the entire process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Giving lifetime appointments to dozens of judges favored by conservatives judicial activists would also be an important legacy for Mr. Trump since his choices would be handing down opinions for decades no matter who follows him in the White House.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe judge story is an untold story; nobody wants to talk about it,\u201d an enthusiastic Mr. Trump said during his impromptu appearance with Mr. McConnell. \u201cBut when you think about it, Mitch and I were saying, that has consequences 40 years out, depending on the age of the judge \u2014 but 40 years out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With some conservatives \u2014 notably Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump\u2019s former chief strategist \u2014 calling for his head, Mr. McConnell has put new emphasis on his role in winning Senate approval of Trump administration officials and judicial nominees. It is one way to try to mollify some conservatives angered by the inability of the Republican-controlled Congress to deliver.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. McConnell renewed that pitch Monday, reminding Americans that one of the Senate\u2019s major responsibilities is what he called \u201cthe personnel business\u201d \u2014 handling up to 1,200 executive branch nominations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing alongside the president, he also took the opportunity to remind Mr. Trump that \u201cthe single most significant thing this president has done to change America is the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.\u201d Mr. McConnell didn\u2019t need to say that it was his own decision in 2016 to refuse to consider President Barack Obama\u2019s nomination of Merrick B. Garland for the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia that held the seat open for Mr. Trump to fill.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not just the Supreme Court,\u201d Mr. McConnell said. \u201cThere are a lot of vacancies at both the circuit court and district court level.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At the moment, there about 150 openings on the federal bench \u2013 21 at the influential appeals court level \u2013 with 50 nominations pending. Some of those vacancies are because of the refusal by Republicans to act on Obama nominations in the last two years of his administration or their failure to return blue slips when Democrats still held the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMany, many are in the pipeline,\u201d Mr. Trump said of his nominees, promising that \u201cwe will set records in terms of the number of judges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the abundance of opportunities, Mr. McConnell reiterated his view that a refusal by Democrats to sign off on home-state nominees should not be allowed to blackball appeals court nominees. He said if that was the case, individual Democrats would have say-so over more than 60 percent of the appeals court candidates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s simply not a tenable place to land in a Senate that now deals with judges with a simple majority,\u201d Mr. McConnell said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump was not inclined to get into the arcana of the blue slip process. \u201cMy attitude is I just want really capable people going to the courts,\u201d the president said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides blue slips, the other remaining impediment to a flurry of judicial confirmations is time \u2013 Senate floor time that is. Though Democrats can no longer block nominees by requiring Republicans to assemble a supermajority of 60 votes, they can require Republicans to follow a procedure that can take more than three days for each individual nominee. And if Democrats conclude Republicans are jamming through judicial nominees, they will no doubt drag their feet as they did earlier this year on executive branch candidates.<\/span><\/p>\n

To step up the pace of confirmations, Mr. McConnell would probably need to keep the Senate in session for longer durations than the current Monday evening through Thursday afternoon schedule. That change could irritate some lawmakers but conservatives have been pressuring Mr. McConnell to extend the Senate workweek.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some hard-line conservatives taking aim at Mr. McConnell were not won over by his Rose Garden bonding moment with Mr. Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMitch McConnell\u2019s bellyaching about all the time it takes to approve presidential personnel doesn\u2019t hold any water when 1) every other Senate before his has managed to do this in a timely manner, and 2) his Senate works an average of 2.5 days per week,\u201d David Bozell, president of ForAmerica, said in a statement calling for Mr. McConnell to step aside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, Mr. McConnell and the president are both hoping that a parade of conservatives taking up lifetime appointments on the federal bench will make restless Republicans forget \u2014 at least for a while \u2014 their disappointment in both the Trump administration and their congressional leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/17\/us\/politics\/trump-mcconnell-judicial-nominees.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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