This is all hindsight talking. Going into it she was suboptimal, but who could lose to fucking Trump.
True, I thought she was a lock to win, but you also have to remember she was on pace to lose a Senate seat in fucking New York until her opponent died and was replaced by some dipshit. But the point remains, itâs apples and oranges. We only have to get to 50 votes from known entities here; weâre not at the mercy of the randomness of millions of votes from random morons and turnout and whatever.
I mean, all it takes is one Democratic senator ending up in a hospital or dead, and weâre in a global pandemic. Feinstein is 88 years old and just lost her husband. 16 other Democrats in the Senate are 70 or over.
Also one of the younger senators just had a stroke and went into the hospital like a week or two ago.
Thatâs why I qualified in my first post with âassuming all 50 Ds are alive and able to voteâ. Assuming those conditions itâs a 100% lock.
It gonna take a bit more than that, right? If blue state, wonât dem replacement just get appointed immediately.
Iâd say like 98%. But yeah itâs pretty close to a lock if theyâre all alive and well.
All I can say is I hope that youâre not a Riverman gimmick.
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It depends on the state.
Someone did a breakdown here not that long ago.
There are significantly fewer D senators that can just be replaced with another D senator within a week than you seem to think.
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Depends on the laws of the state and in some cases, the party of the governor. Not all states allow a governor to immediately replace them, and some have very arcane language about how far they are from the next election.
If either Georgia senator is incapacitated, Governor Brian Kemp (R, very very R) gets to replace them. Scuttling a SCOTUS seat would be a great boost to his future presidential hopes.
If Tester goes, the Republican governor of Montana must replace him with a Democrat, but he could probably drag his feet.
There are others with Republican governors, I wonât list them all.
Five states donât do an interim appointment before a special election, including Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. They have varying laws on when the special election is, Wisconsinâs is:
Between 62 and 77 days after the special election is ordered, unless the vacancy occurs between the second Tuesday in May and the second Tuesday in July in an even-numbered year; in that case, the vacancy must be filled at the regular primary and general elections.
So if someone from a state with a Republican governor goes, we could be down 51-49 for the rest of the term, or we could be down 50-49 while they drag their feet if they have to pick a Dem. If someone from Oregon, Wisconsin or Rhode Island goes weâre down 50-49 for at least a couple months, most likely.
Itâs easy to imagine a timeline where something happens in like late April right before the vote, the special election canât be held until late June or early July, and Republicans start losing their minds about an unelected radical socialist baby murdering liberal nutjob appointee getting to pick a new SCOTUS justice a mere four months before an election.
ThEy WeReNât EvEn In ThE hEaRiNgS hOw CaN tHeY vOtE??? HaVe YoU nO dEcEnCy, Mr. MaNcHiN??? Ms. SiNeMa???
Plus, Senators running for close re-elections wonât want to take a contentious vote right before the election, nor will they want to be in DC right before the election instead of campaigning. So the timeline gets condensed quite a bit, and shit can happen.
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Long story short, Dems should take care of this posthaste.
That ship has already sailed.
ACB was confirmed 40 days after RBG died.
Breyer announced his retirement 44 days ago.
Post haste would have been convincing him to retire on the spot and having a new Justice already on the bench, the republican way.
I think some justices have tendered their resignation effective upon confirmation of the successor. That probably would have been the best way to do it.
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Then you lose his vote on all of the cases he heard this term. In the extremely unlikely event they get 2 deplorables to jump ship on something that costs you the W for no reason.
The entire GOP strategy in tight votes like these is to delay as long as possible until something happens to break the above. Remember Scott Brownâs special election in 2009? That cost us the Public Option which we never got back.
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This is true, but it didnât cost us the public option because Lieberman (and a few others) were never gonna vote for that anyway.
I misread this as âDems should take care of this prostate.â
Not really, seemed like people think Manchin and Sinema are gonna vote no for some reason.
Ha, I know. I just think the dems fuck this up somehow, with Manchin/Sinema being only one option for how that happens.
Yeah, that would have been the proper strategy. Democrats are doing a great job of lending legitimacy and seriousness to a clown show of a court.