There have been a great deal of 5-4 decisions since Sotomayor's nomination that in the future could easily fall the other way.
Edit;
My guess for nomination:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Srinivasan
He's a Stanford guy, Indian, already sailed through the Senate for a DC Court of Appeals position, disliked by Unions, and by all accounts a brilliant legal mind. He's successfully represented corporate clients (e.g. Skilling in Skilling vs. USA) and had a successful career in the private world.
This somewhat contradicts my first paragraph, but he's definitely to the right of Kagan or Sotamayor.
In this case, I doubt it applies. In theory Obama could pick a nominee closer to the center to avoid a tiresome confirmation battle, but I suspect there's a bigger bang for the buck in nominating fairly left-wing candidates and making the Republican Senate choose between looking obstructionist to the general public or looking weak to their base.
Could you explain why this might cost the Republicans votes? Their core voters would absolutely love them standing up to the "tyranny" of Obama. Even independent/undecided voters would understand that its reasonable enough to postpone considering how close the Presidential election is.
To be clear, I think it would be best to have it completed within 3 months, like the previous 10 nominations to the court but I don't think it will cost the Republicans at all to postpone it till next year.
However, my impression is that independent voters prefer action to inaction and typical behavior to atypical, and will be susceptible to 'the Senate is refusing to do its job' arguments from the President and the Democratic presidential nominee, as well as 'Supreme Court appointments are usually approved in XX days' arguments from the press.
We shall see.
Are there any examples where a liberal president nominated a conservative or vice-versa?
(I'm not talking about situations where someone was appointed as a conservative and moved gradually left, which actually happens to all justices.)
By no means a rule, but a tradition at least.
As tptacek said, political labels aren't necessarily objective, so this graph would differ depending on the methodology. It's also a little harder to measure justices' leanings because there are so few data points.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/antonin-scalia-fighter-priva...
He was intensely conservative.
So between the two justices, Alito + Roberts is definitely to the right of Rehnquist + O'Connor, but pretty moderate considering the possibility of two far-right justices.
I've never heard of that and have reason to think otherwise: Presidents see the Supreme Court appointments as a chance to leave their mark on the judiciary. Could you provide some evidence?
So a real compromise candidate might be possible. It'd likely depend on Obama and the senate Democrats as well, though.
it's actually pretty unlikely. Fivethirtyeight has a bunch of good articles about this, but the simplest piece of information pointing to it: Trump is intensely disliked by about 60% of the voting public. He's got a vocal and enthusiastic following, but once you go outside that bubble, he simply doesn't have room to grow.
I voted for Bush twice, McCain, and Romney, and I'll vote for either Hillary or Bernie (two candidates I can't stand) over Trump, and I'm far from alone.
Bush and Cruz are in my "hold my nose and vote" tier.
Carson isn't presidential material IMO.
That's bad, because it will perpetuate party politics. No matter how much people dislike the candidate nominated by their party, they'll think they've got no recourse but to vote for him/her lest they lose the Court.
All the Republicans I know who say they'll vote for Clinton before they'd vote for Trump - and there are plenty of those - won't follow through. The chance we might have had for an olive branch, reaching out of the viper pit of party politics, is now gone.
Those two sets intersect rather less than the Honorable Gentleman from Kentucky would like.
But the idea that the "American People" wouldn't have a say with an Obama appointment is absurd. He was elected with a clear majority and Presidents are elected for four years, not four years minus whenever the next presidential race gets going.
I know you've expressed elsewhere (edit: in this thread) that Republicans have already made it clear that they won't do an appointment this presidency (and you're probably right that they're trying to set themselves firm in this as quickly as possible), but I can't imagine a scenario where Obama doesn't put forth a nomination post-haste. I also cannot imagine 11 months of blocking a SCOTUS nomination and leaving the court with 8 members.
But that's exactly what the Democrat-controlled Senate did after Justice Abe Fortas resigned in disgrace in 1969. They knocked down Nixon's first two nominees, and Fortas wasn't ultimately replaced by Blackmun until a year later[0][1][2].
[0] - Several Wikipedia pages say May 12, but:
[1] - this one says May 17: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessful_nominations_to_th...
[2] - this page says June 9: http://supremecourthistory.org/timeline_blackmun.html
This isn't the first time this has happened. The Supreme Court will function just fine with 8 justices.
Blame John Adams!
I like to imagine he and the Democrats in general might actually end up looking better if that's how it plays out.
In any event any parliamentary ruling is appealable to the floor where it is subject to a majority vote. The is the basis of the so-called nuclear option.
McConnell's hand can be forced if there is a majority willing to do what it takes to force it. If he has the procedural support of his caucus (even if they disagree on the ultimate question) he can prevent a vote from coming to the floor.
Edit: I misread the first sentence. Mea culpa.
The right-winged politicians are posturing to make this a presidential election issue, maybe even a big one.
Electing a president who will in turn appoint a SCOTUS Justice may sway more people to vote. Perhaps the the politicians believe that they can use the normal wedge issues (abortion, death penalty, guns, etc.) to have a strong showing on election day.
I would tend to agree that an open SCOTUS seat would motivate more conservatives to vote. But, these things have a way of back firing for politicians and a lot can happen between now and November.
Of course. The question is, why do the Democrats let the GOP get ahead of and frame every debate? Will they roll over this time or draw every bit of blood they can and make this position cost the GOP more and more politically until they give in.
Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if they roll over. You'll know they did if they don't respond soon to McConnell, or not with an effective message, and Obama nominates someone as far to the right as he can stand.
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