It would seem to be better than a 50-50 bet that he will get that chance when you consider the ages of the current Justices on the Court.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be 84 years of age in a little more than a month.
Anthony Kennedy is almost 81.
Stephen Breyer will be 79 this year.
It is one thing for Gorsuch to fill the seat of Scalia. Other than Clarence Thomas, Scalia was the most ideologically conservative member of the Court as the chart below from FiveThirtyEight demonstrates. It projects that Gorsuch would be roughly similar to Scalia in how he views the law.
In effect, it is more or less a one for one trade for Scalia in the makeup of the Court as it existed before Scalia's death. It really is not a game changer on the makeup of the Court we have seen in recent years.
However, it will be an altogether different situation if Ginsburg, Breyer or Kennedy would need to be replaced.
Just consider the impact on the Court if Ruth Bader Ginsburg could potentially be replaced with another jurist with a similar ideological makeup to Scalia, Thomas or Gorsuch?
Whatever you see playing out over the next couple of months with Gorsuch will be nothing compared to what we will see should Ginsburg's seat open up.
The nomination of Gorsuch by President Trump is already getting liberals concerned about Ginsburg's health.
Consider these comments from several committed leftists in this story from The Washington Post that was picked up by SF Gate, "Can she eat more kale? Hordes of liberals want reassurance of RBG's health"
"I'm very interested in this." says Jeanette Bavwidinski, a community organizer in Pennsylvania. "I'm interested in what her daily regimen is. Like, what are you all feeding RBG? Is she getting enough fresh air? Is she walking? Is she staying low-stress? What is she reading? Is she reading low-stress things?"
"Can she eat more kale?" asks Kim Landsbergen, a forest ecologist in Ohio. "Eat more kale, that's all I can say. We love you. Eat more kale.
Concerns about Ginsburg's health are not unwarranted in that she has already survived both colon and pancreatic cancer.
You may also remember this photo of Justice Ginsburg at President Obama's 2015 State of the Union Address. I guess you could say she was not enthralled by what she heard that night.
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| Credit: YouTube |
Many of the left are unhappy with Ginsburg that she did not retire when Obama was President so that he could appoint a successor. However, in her defense, I don't think she ever considered the possibility that Trump would be President.
If you recall, she said this about Trump in an interview with The New York Times that she later recanted and apologized for after receiving strong criticism from all sides.
“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
It reminded her of something her husband, Martin D. Ginsburg, a prominent tax lawyer who died in 2010, would have said.
“Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,’” Justice Ginsburg said, smiling ruefully.
Perhaps Ruth Bader Ginsburg could not imagine it but it is the reality now. It also probably explains why Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan all are using a personal trainer according to The Washington Post story. However, it does not tell us whether she is eating kale.
One more chart is worth looking at for all those who suggested that Merrick Garland was a "centrist" and that Obama went out of his way to nominate a candidate who should have been acceptable to Republicans.
Really?
This is how The New York Times assessed each of the justices on the ideological spectrum together with how they saw Garland lining up.
This may be how The Times defines a centrist but it looks nothing like a centrist to me.
Considering all of this, it points to the fact that the Gorsuch nomination is merely the preliminary bout. The main event is yet to come.
I have no doubt that the Democrats will throw everything they can at Gorsuch but are they willing to impede the nomination process such that the GOP will need to employ the so-called "nuclear option"
and force a mere majority vote in the Senate rather than the super-majority 60 votes?
They may be unhinged enough to do it but I don't think it would be smart on this nomination. Doing it now on a pick that doesn't really change the balance on the Court seems short-sighted. It would seem better to wait until the stakes were larger if you were a Democrat.
The worst is yet to come.
For Democrats.
And, unfortunately, for all of us who have to look at these spectacles in Washington.
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