The Spectator ● May 16, 2016
Page 11
Opinions
By Matteo Wong At some point in any crime show, a cop will inevitably say, “You have the right to remain silent.” This is because it is a “Miranda right,” granted by the 1966 Supreme Court decision, Miranda v. Arizona, in which a man thought he was legally obligated to confess. After the decision, law enforcement was required to inform prisoners of their constitutional rights before making an arrest, such as “the right to remain silent.” Miranda v. Arizona was a 5-4 decision, but it could easily have been a 4-4 deadlock, which would have allowed law enforcement agencies to manipulate thousands of cases. Now, the U.S. Senate is refusing to discuss a Supreme Court nominee, leaving the court with an even number of justices for another year and thereby threatening the rights and wellbeing of millions. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13 of this year. As per the Constitution, which says, “[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint […] Judges of the Supreme Court,” President Barack Obama is supposed to provide a candidate to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy, and he has—his pick is Merrick Garland, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Now, the Senate needs to decide whether Garland is acceptable. If they approve President Obama’s nomination, Garland will become
the next Supreme Court Justice. However, instead of approving or rejecting Garland, many Republican senators, led by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, are refusing to even consider President Obama’s nomination. Senator McConnell claims that the Senate has a duty to represent the will of the American people, and because the U.S. is currently in the midst of an election, allowing President Obama to select the next Justice would not represent public opinion. Senator McConnell believes that because the majority of Congress is Republican, Americans want a Republican president, and therefore a Republican justice. Hence, he is calling for the Senate to wait until elections are over, and to then consider a nominee chosen by the newly elected president. In theory, this isn’t unprecedented: the Senate refused to consider nominations during an election year in 1828, 1844, and 1852. However, Senator McConnell’s reasoning is far from convincing: President Obama was elected by a popular majority—twice. Moreover, his approval ratings are over 50 percent per the Gallup Poll—the highest they’ve been in three years. To claim that President Obama doesn’t represent popular opinion is not only ludicrous, but an obvious attempt to conceal McConnell’s political agenda. As for the historical precedent, times have changed. A refusal like McConnell’s hasn’t happened for over 150 years, and, further, the Supreme Court has never been short a justice for an entire year, which would be an enormous length of time. For years, the Supreme Court has held a five to four majority in favor of the Republicans. With the death of Justice Scalia, the court is at an ideological impasse, with four liberal justices and four conservatives. Garland, a moderate Democrat, would give the Democrats a five justice majority on the Court, which would mark a disastrous turn of events for the Republican Party and cause Senator McConnell’s popularity to plummet. If McConnell and his supporters really disagreed with Garland’s nomination, they could simply refuse him and force President
Ruby Gary / The Spectator
Jessica Wu / The Spectator
Politics Reign Supreme
Obama to nominate someone else. However, Garland isn’t particularly disagreeable to the Republican faction of the Senate—for starters, he’s 63, meaning his tenure on the Court wouldn’t be very long. Additionally, he is considerably more moderate than other candidates that President Obama was considering before the nomination. So, for Republican senators, refusing to hold a hearing until the presidential election is over is a win-win situation: either a Republican will win the election and nominate a conservative to the Court in Garland’s place, or a Democrat will win and the Republican senators will accept Garland’s nomination before the newly elected president can nominate a more liberal candidate. Ignoring President Obama’s nomination may be a brilliant political move, but it also sets a dangerous precedent: that politics can be used to override, and take control of, the government. Since there is a Republican majority in the Senate, many Republican senators think they can manipulate the Supreme Court. In the future, there will be nothing to stop Democrats from doing the same thing, which would transform the government from representing the people’s voice into an elite power play. Moreover, McConnell is depriving the United States federal government, specifically the Supreme Court, of the ability to function properly. The Supreme Court’s role is to interpret the Constitution and vote on important cases. Many
of the Court’s decisions are for the purpose of judicial review, or reviewing executive and legislative actions to ensure their constitutionality. Judicial review is an essential part of making sure no single branch of government abuses its power. But, since Justice Scalia’s death, the Supreme Court has only had eight members, so it is politically balanced, and will struggle to make important decisions. The Supreme Court has already come to a split decision multiple times, including in instrumental cases such as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case about whether unions should be legally permitted to collect compulsory fees. Conservatives brought the case forward to weaken the power of unions, so in this situation the tie was a liberal victory. But if the Supreme Court had to come to a concrete decision over an issue more pressing than unions, having an even number of justices would be disastrous. Take the example of United States v. Texas, a case currently before the Supreme Court concerning President Obama’s 2014 executive orders on immigration. President Obama’s executive actions allow immigrant children and parents to apply for work permits. The Supreme Court will decide, among other things, if immigration laws fall under the scope of executive authority, which could have broad-reaching implications for future presidential actions. As it currently stands, the Supreme Court is headed for a stale-
mate, with four justices in support of President Obama’s executive orders and four against. The purpose of having an odd number of justices is to avoid situations like this one. Millions of immigrants’ futures should not be played with in a grand game of politics. By undermining President Obama’s authority and the Supreme Court’s functionality, Senator McConnell’s political aims are impairing the government. The president is supposed to provide strong, decisive leadership, and the Supreme Court should be able to guarantee justice throughout the country. The senators refusing to consider the Garland nomination are not only neglecting their jobs, but also preventing the entire government from promoting the public’s welfare, as it is mandated to do in the Constitution. Impeding the United States federal government from doing this—its most fundamental job—is outright unconstitutional. Senator McConnell and the other senators who have refused to consider the Garland nomination must either be forced to hold a hearing, or be punished for failing to do their jobs and hindering the entire government from fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities. For a doctor, professor, or lawyer, not showing up for work would be grounds for dismissal; similarly, for a senator, not even considering a nominee for the next Supreme Court justice should be grounds for impeachment.
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any incumbent ever. After these disastrous contests, the DNC rightly decided to make some changes to the nomination process: they ensured that an electable candidate would be backed. To do this, they created the superdelegates. Since their inception, superdelegates have not played a crucial role in any nominating process: the candidate that won the most popular votes has always won the nomination. In 2008, many superdelegates switched to support Obama once it was evident that he would win the nomination. T h e purpose of superdelegates is not to subvert democracy, but rather to secure the future of the Democratic Party as a whole, so that an ultraliberal, unelectable figure is not chosen for the nomination, only for the democratic party to live with the consequences of undelivered promises and a tarnished reputation. And if anyone is ultraliberal, it’s Bernie. Don’t get me rH ua n
On Facebook and at rallies, one common thread among Bernie supporters is their hatred for superdelegates: one group went so far as to create a “Superdelegate Hit List,” a list of all the superdelegates’ names, phone numbers, and, at one point, their home addresses. But superdelegates are not establishment demons hell-bent on stealing votes away from the common man; they are elected officials and prominent party members there to ensure that an unelectable candidate is not nominated and to protect the cohesion of the Democratic Party.
the election, an internal committee of the DNC advised that the DNC change its nomination procedure to be based solely on primary or caucus contests, without the direct influence of party heads. Without establishment influence, the democratic nominee process failed miserably. In 1972, the Democratic voters chose George McG over n, described as “a champion of liberal causes” by The New York Times. He then proceeded to lose every single state in the union except Massachusetts. In the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter won the election more off Nixon’s Watergate scandal than his own merits; he also only received 50.1 percent of the popular vote. In 1980, when Carter faced Ronald Reagan, he also flopped: with just six states and D.C., it was the worst Electoral College defeat of
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By Stephen Nyarko
For those of you who are fuzzy on the details of electoral decision-making, the purpose of presidential primaries and caucuses is to allocate delegates to candidates based on the percent of the statewide vote; if you get 15 percent of the vote in any state, you get 15 percent of the delegates of that state. All the delegates elected by this process are called “pledged” delegates, as they must vote for the candidate to which they are assigned, and they make up 85 percent of the delegates attending the convention in July. The other 15 percent are unpledged delegates, or superdelegates, who can vote for whichever candidate they would like. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has 715 elected superdelegates, including present and former presidents and vice presidents, current governors, and current Congressmen. Superdelegates were introduced as a means to further extend voter enfranchisement within the Democratic party, and their history is crucial in evaluating their efficacy and necessity. In 1968, democratic big wigs chose Herbert Humphrey as the Democratic nominee, even though he had not won a single primary in any of the 14 states that held primaries or Washington, D.C. After Humphrey lost
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Jensen Foerster / The Spectator
Superdelegates and Their Super Jobs wrong—I love Bernie Sanders. I like what he stands for, I like his integrity, and I like his ambition. But as a rational human being who understands how this government works, it’s not impossible to imagine all his grand ideas simply stalling in the Republican-controlled Congress. And I’m almost certain he won’t win any general election. As an independent, he lacks the political connections for meaningful endorsements and fundraising needed for a prolonged campaign, and, according to a Gallup poll, his self-proclaimed socialism has already eliminated him consideration of 50 percent of U.S. voters. Superdelegates would most likely not support Bernie for all of these reasons, but if you actually look at the numbers, it doesn’t seem to matter. Hillary Clinton is up by almost 350 pledged delegate votes anyway, so it isn’t as if superdelegates are the only factor denying Sanders the vote. The truth is, Sanders isn’t as popular as Hillary Clinton in the Democratic voting base. If Sanders is going to campaign without knowledge on foreign policy, without clear and attainable goals, and with a selfendowed political affiliation half the general electorate would not vote for, wouldn’t the superdelegates be doing their job by refusing him the nomination?