The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Oh boy, remember the summer of 2021? That's when we were deluged with spicy hot takes about how the Supreme Court isn't nearly as bad as liberals feared it would be. Well, here we are half a year away and that supposedly reasonable Supreme Court just proved all of its critics right. They are a bunch of partisan hacks who will ignore the plain letter of the law in order to undermine Democratic governance and install Republicans into power.

Thursday's decision to strike down President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers certainly wasn't the result of a good faith reading of the law. It wasn't even an expression of some ideological opposition to the "administrative state," as Steve Bannon and other authoritarian nuts sneeringly call it. No, the only jurisprudence guiding the Republican-controlled Supreme Court — which has a whopping three appointees by Donald Trump sitting on it — is a belief that the only legitimate presidents are Republicans. We know this not just because of the bad faith of the decision itself, but also by contrasting it with the warm-and-fuzzy feelings that the justices have towards expansive presidential powers when Republicans are in charge.

First of all, the decision itself is a joke. As legal expert Mark Joseph Stern at Slate wrote, the court's "unsigned majority opinion rests on several dubious claims" and, crucially, "is utterly untethered to the plain text of the law." The anti-mandate argument held that because COVID-19 is a general threat to public health, it cannot be considered a discrete workplace safety issue. But, as many folks pointed out, the conservative justices don't believe their own reasoning here, as evidenced by the fact that the Supreme Court building's pandemic precautions are justified as a workplace safety issue.

The hackish nature of this decision — which is so bad that none of the six conservative justices who voted for it was willing to sign it — cannot be overstated.

As Vox's legal expert Ian Millhiser joked on Twitter, the Supreme Court "thinks there's a Let's Go Brandon Clause in the Constitution."

This is about one thing and one thing only: Republicans believe prolonging the COVID-19 pandemic helps them politically. They are willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives — mostly the lives of their own voters — to serve this strategy. The Republicans who control the Supreme Court are, feeble protestations aside, partisan hacks who shape their decisions based on what will help Republicans gain power.

To that end, the motives of the conservative justices are no different than the QAnon shaman and the other jackasses who stormed the Capitol last year in an attempt to overturn the election. They all flat-out reject that right of duly elected Democrats to govern. The justices may hide this anti-democratic sentiment behind faux-legalese and the enrobed pretenses of the Supreme Court, while the QAnoners hide it behind lurid talk of cannibalistic pedophiles and stolen elections. Underneath it all, however, is the same idea: Only Republicans have a legitimate claim to power.

As Osita Nwanevu wrote in the New York Times earlier this month, Republicans view the Constitution "as an eternal compact that keeps power in their rightful hands" and don't care much about the actual text of it that says differently. It's why they are fighting to keep actual history out of schools and peddle fake histories that recast the U.S. as a theocratic Christian state instead of a secular democracy. It's why Trump's descriptions of voters of color as "frauds" make so much sense to them — not because they think those voters are actually casting illegal votes, but because they don't view the right to vote for nonwhites as legitimate to begin with.

And to disagree a bit with Salon's Heather "Digby" Parton, this ruling isn't even about anything as lofty as ideological opposition to the "administrative state." Somehow the Supreme Court had no real problem with Trump's actual overreach when it came to his use of executive power. They repeatedly bent over backward to protect Trump's decisions that violated the Constitution or the limits put on his power, even as they are eager to strike down Biden's mundane use of power that sticks closely to the letter of the law. Mark Joseph Stern pointed this out on Twitter:

The court either blessed or at least declined to curtail a large number of Trump's actual overreaches of executive power. In violation of the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause, the court upheld Trump's travel ban that was quite clearly designed to block Muslims from entering the country. Not only did they uphold Trump's "remain in Mexico" policy that runs counter to international law regarding the rights of political refugees, they, with typically sloppy reasoning, forced the Biden administration to keep following Trump's rules. They approved Trump's clearly illegal reappropriation of defense spending money to start construction on his border wall.

Even in cases where they knew there was no way they could legally justify Trump's abuse of executive power, they backed him anyway by slow-walking cases asking them to overrule his illegal actions. For instance, Trump's "gag rule" barring clinics that receive federal funds from even mentioning abortion to patients clearly violated the First Amendment. But rather than throwing it out, the court dragged their feet on issuing any ruling, forcing clinics like Planned Parenthood to drastically reduce services until Biden came in and ended the policy.

Nor is this naked partisanship just about Trump. As CNN legal contributor Steve Vladeck pointed out, Republicans were more than fine with George W. Bush's power grab when it came to his desire to avoid constitutional limits on his presidential right to wage war.

There's no detectable consistency in jurisprudence or legal ideology in any of this. It's all just about one apparent belief guiding the court's decisions: Only Republicans are legitimate leaders.

This partisan agenda is why the Supreme Court has also thrown out perfectly good laws like the Voting Rights Act or transparency legislation regarding campaign finance. Bush v. Gore, for that matter, showed this partisan hackery pre-dates even the appointment of the current slate of Republican hacks on the highest bench in the country. It all circles back to this idea that the rights and will of the voters are illegitimate — if those voters choose Democrats instead of Republicans as their leaders. Don't let the fancy robes fool you. When it comes to their views on law and power, the Republicans who control the Supreme Court might as well pop on some antlers and face paint while they run through the halls of the Capitol building screaming nonsense about "Stop the steal!"
https://www.salon.com/2022/01/14/the-g ... rue-power/

A good opinion, the SCOTUS is suppose to be impartial. This court is anything but impartial, thanks to TOT and MoscowMitch, a result we will be facing for many years.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Yes, the US constitution doesn't state federal judges have lifetime appointments. And it doesn't state how many federal judges there should be, that's up to the legislative branch to decide. The opinion writer conveniently forgot to mention that Harry Reid changed the filibuster to get Obama's judicial appointees (district and circuit) through the Senate and McConnell extended it for SCOTUS justices. The filibuster prevented extreme candidates, like Robert Bork from getting a seat on the high court. One court watcher commented that the current SCOTUS is the most conservative since the 1930s when FDR was in the WH. Harry Reid screwed the pooch. McConnell and Trump just took advantage of vacancies to add three new conservative justices.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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highdesert wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:55 am Yes, the US constitution doesn't state federal judges have lifetime appointments. And it doesn't state how many federal judges there should be, that's up to the legislative branch to decide. The opinion writer conveniently forgot to mention that Harry Reid changed the filibuster to get Obama's judicial appointees (district and circuit) through the Senate and McConnell extended it for SCOTUS justices. The filibuster prevented extreme candidates, like Robert Bork from getting a seat on the high court. One court watcher commented that the current SCOTUS is the most conservative since the 1930s when FDR was in the WH. Harry Reid screwed the pooch. McConnell and Trump just took advantage of vacancies to add three new conservative justices.
Bingo. Legislators used to think about the consequences of their actions. Not any more.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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sikacz wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:40 am
highdesert wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:55 am Yes, the US constitution doesn't state federal judges have lifetime appointments. And it doesn't state how many federal judges there should be, that's up to the legislative branch to decide. The opinion writer conveniently forgot to mention that Harry Reid changed the filibuster to get Obama's judicial appointees (district and circuit) through the Senate and McConnell extended it for SCOTUS justices. The filibuster prevented extreme candidates, like Robert Bork from getting a seat on the high court. One court watcher commented that the current SCOTUS is the most conservative since the 1930s when FDR was in the WH. Harry Reid screwed the pooch. McConnell and Trump just took advantage of vacancies to add three new conservative justices.
Bingo. Legislators used to think about the consequences of their actions. Not any more.

Exactly, they want it all NOW and damn the consequences. Their political party has decided and they either vote the party line or they'll get ripped to shreds in the media. And Fox News and CNN/MSNBC obey the party. Democrats love rebels if they're Republicans, Republicans love rebels if they're Democrats.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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F4FEver wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:50 am What's needed is a clear majority in both the house and senate and then impeach the little weasel liar Kavanaugh. THEN make SCOTUS 11 justices.
But he sided with Roberts and the 3 libs on the lesser restriction. I suspect Bret is the least conservative of the 5, less than Barrett, FAR less than the 2 Nazis and UT Thomas.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Brett Kavanaugh put 'on notice' by furious conservatives for 'ruling the wrong way

According to a report from the Washington Post's Aaron Blake, the honeymoon between Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the conservatives who had high hopes for him after he was tabbed by former president Donald Trump to fill the seat vacated by retired Anthony Kennedy has come to an abrupt end.

The controversial Kavanaugh, who was voted onto the highest court in the land by a slim 50–48 margin due to allegations of sexual impropriety, sided with the Joe Biden administration earlier this past week on vaccine mandates for healthcare workers, and that has conservatives hopping mad.

Writing that the "knives are out" for Kavanaugh if he doesn't toe the far-right conservative line, Blake said the Trump appointee can expect attacks to grow increasingly personal.

While Donald Trump Jr. has led the charge, tweeting, "The left broke Kavanaugh. That was always their intention and it worked. They turned him into a [John] Roberts," other influential conservatives piled on late Friday expressing their anger and disappointment with the jurist.

"[Fox News personality Tucker] Carlson upped the ante Friday night, combining his and Trump Jr.'s attacks and going after Kavanaugh for tearing up during his confirmation hearing. 'We didn’t understand at the time that something had broken inside of Brett Kavanaugh,' Carlson said of the confirmation moment, 'that on some level his tormenters now controlled him,'" Blake wrote.

Rising Republican start Ron DeSantis of Florida chimed in to complain, "Honestly, Roberts and Kavanaugh didn’t have a backbone on that decision — that’s the bottom line."

"So that’s the most popular conservative cable news host, the former president’s son and perhaps the most ascendant not-named-Trump Republican in the country all going after Kavanaugh in very pointed ways and suggesting that he has effectively caved to pressure from the left," Blake wrote before adding, "This hasn’t come out of nowhere — conservative unrest has built with Kavanaugh for some time as he has emerged as perhaps the court’s swing vote — nor is Kavanaugh the only Trump appointee to be on the receiving end of such treatment."

Adding that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has come to Kavanaugh's rescue saying it is too early to judge how Kavanaugh will turn out, Blake added Trump's last appointee -- who the former president has privately conceded "I am very disappointed in him, in his rulings" -- doesn't appear to be getting the benefit of the doubt.

"A little more than a year later, some leading conservative firebrands are clearly not content to wait for decades of Kavanaugh decisions. They’ve decided to put him on notice that they’ll go after his character at the drop of a hat when he rules the wrong way — even when he rules the right way the very same day," Blake reported.
https://www.rawstory.com/brett-kavanaugh-2656413492/

As he gets older he might get more liberal, Earl Warren did.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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What can they do to Kavanaugh?
He's on the SCOTUS and if Thomas, the most corrupt and biased Justice is untouchable, so is Kavanaugh. Only if they succeed in turning the USA into a dictatorship, and turn the House and Senate into nothing but rubber stamps, will he be at risk of impeachment. But, in that case, that will be the least of his, and everyone's problems.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Democratic attacks on conservative justices reminds me of the Republican attacks on Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William O Douglas, William Brennan... The Democratic US Senate majority leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster and then Democrats went apeshit over Kavanaugh's confirmation, what did they expect? Shoot yourself in the foot and then blame everyone else because you're lame.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Why in the everloving hell does anyone believe that Mitch McConnell did anything because of Harry Reid? That's an excuse. He didn't have to drop the filibuster for the Supreme Court, he did it because he wanted to. He would have done the same for federal courts if it hadn't been done previously.

Harry Reid is used as an excuse by people unwilling to acknowledge that Mitch is a sociopath without principle who will do and has done literally anything to further his own personal ends.

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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wings wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:41 pm Why in the everloving hell does anyone believe that Mitch McConnell did anything because of Harry Reid? That's an excuse. He didn't have to drop the filibuster for the Supreme Court, he did it because he wanted to. He would have done the same for federal courts if it hadn't been done previously.

Harry Reid is used as an excuse by people unwilling to acknowledge that Mitch is a sociopath without principle who will do and has done literally anything to further his own personal ends.
Exactly. All it was was the fig leaf McConnell preferred, but he would have done it anyway because he spent most of the entire Obama admin blocking appointments and IMMEDIATELY reversed that when Trump came in, racing through as many lifetime judgeships right until the very end.
McConnell has NO principles, morals, nor sense of fairness whatever. He's like Humpty-Dumpty: "Words mean whatever I want them to mean, no more, no less."
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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wings wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:41 pm Why in the everloving hell does anyone believe that Mitch McConnell did anything because of Harry Reid? That's an excuse. He didn't have to drop the filibuster for the Supreme Court, he did it because he wanted to. He would have done the same for federal courts if it hadn't been done previously.

Harry Reid is used as an excuse by people unwilling to acknowledge that Mitch is a sociopath without principle who will do and has done literally anything to further his own personal ends.
If Harry Reid hadn't changed the Senate filibuster rule to exempt the nominations of federal district and circuit judges, it's not likely that McConnell would have gone and changed the filibuster rule just for SCOTUS justices. Reid set the precedent.

And now the filibuster rule has been changed again to allow the debt ceiling to be raised on majority vote. I can just hearing the yelling and screaming when Republicans do it next time to give tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. We all know that's going to happen.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Reid was PLAYED by McConnell, blocking appointments, claiming unfilled judicial seats weren't a problem...but I'd bet my SocSec if Reid hadn't done it, Mitch would have done it the second Trump was in power...with his usual Kentucky Fried Chickenshit to explain it.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 2:08 pm Reid was PLAYED by McConnell, blocking appointments, claiming unfilled judicial seats weren't a problem...but I'd bet my SocSec if Reid hadn't done it, Mitch would have done it the second Trump was in power...with his usual Kentucky Fried Chickenshit to explain it.
I agree YT, Reid was impatient and wanted to get Obama's judicial nominees confirmed pronto. He and all the Democratic senators exempted SCOTUS nominations, McConnell just took it to it's logical conclusion of including SCOTUS nominations.
In 2013, Democrats held a majority in the Senate while President Barack Obama occupied the White House. For four decades, a 60-vote supermajority had been required to advance all federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments, per The Washington Post.

Then, Senate Republicans attempted to filibuster multiple Obama nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, his pick for Defense secretary, and his choices to lead the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In response, Reid orchestrated a move to lower the Senate vote threshold to 51 to confirm most presidential appointments — but not nominees to the Supreme Court. Those nominees, and legislation, could still be filibustered. The Democrat-controlled Senate voted 52-48 in favor of the change, which was dubbed the "nuclear option."

At the time, McConnell condemned the move. “It’s a sad day in the history of the Senate,” he told reporters, calling it a “power grab" by Democrats.

By 2017, roles had reversed — Republicans held the majority in the Senate, and President Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office. After Senate Democrats, now in the minority, filibustered the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch — Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court — McConnell engineered his own "nuclear option."

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-48 to reduce the vote threshold for confirming nominees to the Supreme Court from 60 to 51, per The New York Times. (The need for a 60-vote supermajority still exists for legislation.)

Again, both sides played the blame game. “This is the latest escalation in the left’s never-ending judicial war, the most audacious yet,” McConnell said, of Democratic efforts to filibuster the Gorsuch high court nomination. Schumer, meanwhile, said that when "history weighs what happened," the responsibility will rest on McConnell and Republicans.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/fac ... 573369001/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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highdesert wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:13 am The Democratic US Senate majority leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster and then Democrats went apeshit over Kavanaugh's confirmation, what did they expect? Shoot yourself in the foot and then blame everyone else because you're lame.
Yes, and now the Dems would continue to weaken the filibuster. I continue to find that to be a very bad idea, for all the reasons stated in this very thread.

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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I would like to see the Filibuster ether totally removed or just return it to the way it was in the the late 1950s.where they have to talk and talk and talk till they drop.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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I want those resisting Cloture to have to put skin in the game.
Instead of requiring 60 votes to invoke Cloture, they should require 41 votes to PREVENT cloture--and all 41 (the filibusterer+40) to be IN THE SENATE CHAMBER to prevent Cloture. Otherwise, a simple majority should be sufficient to invoke Cloture.
Furthermore, preventing debate should not be a separate option as it is now. Cloture is only to bring the bill up for voting.

I have NO idea were Sinema is coming from (Emily's List is considering dropping her--they must). Manchin is simply a corrupted DINO.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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A claim can be made that the filibuster was designed to get around the Constitution.
Some politicians have reacted to this by realizing that they can promise anything to voters and then blame the dysfunction in Washington for their failure. Trump was the master of this. He pledged to replace Obamacare with a “phenomenal” health care program, but no one in the White House ever bothered to draft anything. The Republicans made a few stabs at repealing Obamacare without replacing it, and then Trump spent the rest of his presidency blaming Democrats for his failure. Trump, weirdly, seemed to prefer to fail and blame his opposition for that failure rather than put the effort into actually succeeding. The filibuster is a perfect excuse for his politics, based on resentment and whining.
https://medium.com/politically-speaking ... 6d368fb52d

We hates it that this republic can be ruled by an inhumane morass of villainy and scum.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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Some US Senate Democrats want to abolish the filibuster just to pass Biden's BBB bill and a voting bill, like children very short sighted. Republicans will exact revenge by extending the revised filibuster to their advantage such as passing their version of a voting rights bill, further restricting abortion even in blue states and enacting restrictions on medical abortions and birth control.

From Harry Enten at CNN, he was formerly with 538. This is a November 2021 article.
Democrats are holding onto the US Senate by a thread. The chamber is tied 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties in the Democrats' favor. Republicans need to pick up only one seat in next year's midterm elections to gain control of the chamber, and an early look at the 2022 Senate playing field suggests they should be considered favorites.

I designed a model that takes into account experts' race ratings, the last presidential vote in each state, whether the incumbent is running for reelection, and the generic congressional ballot. I did that for the 2022 cycle and examined how these factors were correlated with Senate election outcomes since 2006. Based on those calculations, the GOP's odds are roughly 3 in 4 (75%) to pick up one seat for a majority. The most likely outcome is a Republican net gain of two to three seats.

To be clear, there's a lot of uncertainty in this estimate, which reflects a range of probabilities to account for slightly different ways of projecting outcomes of races. In fact, depending on how things go over the next year, anything from a sizable Democratic gain of greater than five seats to a Republican gain of greater than five seats is possible.

The takeaway, though, is that Republicans more often than not will have a net gain, and therefore take control. The reason I say Republicans are favored is because of the seats that are up for grabs and what history tells us about how the elections in those seats will play out. Republicans are seen as the favorites by the model for a simple reason: the GOP advantage in the average generic congressional ballot poll. A Republican advantage on the generic ballot this early is unusual, and it hasn't happened since at least 2006.

However, the map this cycle is not one where the Republican advantage is apparent at first glance. Not only are there more Republican-held seats up for grabs (20 to the Democrats' 14), but there are slightly more Republican than Democratic-held seats up for reelection in 2022 in states that were decided by less than 10 points in the 2020 presidential election.

Race ratings also indicate something closer to a tossup in the fight for the Senate. Historically, though, it takes time for the microenvironment (i.e. individual seat designations) to catch up to what the macroenvironment (i.e. generic congressional ballot) indicates will happen. Moreover, we know from past years that the generic ballot at this point in midterm cycles tends to underestimate the tailwinds the opposition party will have at their backs come election time.

You can see these phenomena by looking at the Cook Political Report and Crystal Ball ratings. Right now, Cook and the Crystal Ball have three Democratic senators (Mark Kelly in Arizona, Raphael Warnock in Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada) in races rated as tossups. They also have the GOP-held seat in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey is retiring, as a tossup. Both have New Hampshire as leaning Democratic. President Joe Biden won all of these states by 7 points or less last year.

If trends in past years hold, the races designated as tossups are more likely to lean Republican come election time. In other words, Republicans are projected to win those states about 7 in 10 times. This makes sense given the fact that Biden barely won these tossup state in 2020 and 2022 is shaping up to be a more pro-Republican year.

In New Hampshire, which Biden won by about 7 points, the model suggests the race is actually a tossup. Cook rates North Carolina, which is an open seat, and Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson may or may not run for another term, as tossups, while the Crystal Ball rates them as leaning Republican. As in other tossup states (save Nevada), these states were decided by about a point or less in the 2020 presidential election. With the pro-GOP national environment, Republicans in both states are favored by the model to win about 4-in-5 times.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that Republicans may not win all or even any of these seats. Republicans could even lose seats where they have better odds but that experts rate as competitive, albeit leaning or likely to be won by a Republican, like Florida (where Sen. Marco Rubio is running) or Ohio (an open seat).

The key thing, though, is that Republicans have a better chance in the seats they're looking to pick up than Democrats have in the seats they're looking to pick up. When you start adding those probabilities across races, it's likely that Republicans will win the seats necessary to secure the majority, even if they lose one unexpectedly.

Moreover, lopsided national environments can produce surprising results in unexpected places. Twelve years ago at this point, the Wisconsin Senate race was rated solid Democratic by the Cook Political Report. Such a rating made sense: Democrats had easily carried the state on the presidential level in 2008 and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold was running for reelection. Feingold ended up losing, however.

Outside of perhaps Colorado, where Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is running for reelection next year, I'm not sure you could point to one state where such a surprise result might happen. But if past years hold, There's probably going to be one state that's not on people's radar that will eventually become competitive. The model takes that into account, and it gives Republicans an extra boost.

The bottom line here is pretty simple: Republicans have a better shot than Democrats of having a Senate majority after 2022. It's not a foregone conclusion, however, with a lot of campaigning to go.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/21/politics ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: The Supreme Court's golden rule: Only Republican leaders hold true power

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The GOP taking the Senate in 2022 means diddly for the filibuster, because the Dems hold the White House. The filibuster is only relevant during episodes of single party control of both Congress and executive branches. In an age where legislators represented districts instead of factions, there was no need for it, but once parties became established it became a little-c conservative tool to limit changes in the law to those with supermajority support. The Constitution specifies the instances in which the Founders determined supermajority approval were deemed appropriate and necessary for the function of the republic. They include impeachments, treaties, and amendments to the Constitution.
CDFingers wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:25 am We hates it that this republic can be ruled by an inhumane morass of villainy and scum.

CDFingers
Wasn't a wretched hive? And aren't we mixing fandoms here? I mean, sure, Gollum and Ben Kenobi go way back, riding dragons with Spock.

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