The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Consider donating today to support our mission.

The battle over Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court has consumed the news cycle since Ginsburg’s death on Sept. 18.

Both Democrats and Republicans have pursued major political maneuvers following Ginsburg’s death. However, the hypocritical semantics from Republicans in the fight to nominate Barrett could prove disastrous for the GOP. 

Senate-majority Republicans were reluctant to push a vote to the floor in 2016 for Judge Merrick Garland, a nominee of President Barack Obama. Republicans’ main justification of this denial to provide a vote on the floor was that the American people had a right to decide. This right, according to the Republicans, came in the form of the presidential election that year.

The Republicans spent the spring and summer of 2016 citing whatever points they could to justify that proclaimed right of the American people. They couldn’t, of course, say they needed to please their constituents and win re-election. Their decision needed to seem a bit more principled than that. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spent that time pointing to the “Biden Rule.” McConnell claimed that then-Vice President Joe Biden had argued for the same principle in 1992 that the Republicans were arguing for in 2016. The credibility of this claim is dubious at best. 

But the Democrats are now crying wolf. They say that, if the American people had a right to weigh in on the nomination in 2016, why not now?

The situation, however, is quite different. The Republicans in the 2016 Senate had nothing to gain from a vote and the potential confirmation of Garland. They did, however, have something to gain from the confirmation of a conservative justice. It’s nearly certain that Republicans in the Senate gained support from their conservative constituents by confirming justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in the last three years.

The back and forth bickering from both parties, frankly, seems a bit more like a fight between angry children than political discourse, something that has unfortunately become the norm.

While the Democrats hold a somewhat weak talking point against current Senate Republicans, the Republicans may not actually be any better off for this maneuver to nominate Barrett.

The Democrats have responded to Republicans’ change in tune by threatening political action. The speculation is that Democrats will tinker with removing the filibuster in the Senate or packing the courts. It’s certainly possible that Republicans pushed these claims to provide themselves with ammunition. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has used the claims to fearmonger toward Republicans across the country, making sure to warn that the threat of Democrats packing the courts “is very real.” This is, of course, very speculative, but so are many other Republican talking points currently.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) spent the 2016 political season vehemently opposing a Supreme Court nomination. He often cited the same talking point about Americans having a right to weigh in. But during an interview with “Meet the Press,” in September, Barrasso didn’t have much of substance to say in defense of the current Republican maneuvers.

Chuck Todd uses the beginning of his interview with Barrasso to ask him why he feels that the American people don’t deserve a chance to weigh in this time around. 

“If the shoe were on the other foot, and the Democrats had the White House and the Senate, they would right now be trying to confirm another member of the Supreme Court,” Barrasso said.

This isn’t an answer. It’s simply Barrasso trying to drag Democrats into the mud by saying they’d do the same thing if they were in the Republicans’ position. This point, like those of other Republicans, is also speculative. It’s easy for Republicans to convince themselves that the Democrats would do the same, and they might. But this statement is based on precedent, and the replication of this act isn’t guaranteed.

Arguments such as Barrasso’s, made on a major television program, unfortunately carry a great deal of weight in the Republicans’ chances to maintain a majority in the Senate. But not all Americans have decided what party they support, and it’s in the interests of the Republicans to be more logical and careful with their statements.

To state in 2016 that people should be able to weigh possible Supreme Court nominations as part of their vote for president, only to turn around and essentially state the opposite, is a strategically unsound move. 

Republicans will likely lose independent voters because of these illogical statements. They may keep their loyal supporters, but the loss of middle-of-the-road voters will hurt Republican chances to maintain a Senate majority and the White House.

Aside from Republican interests, however, this move by current conservative Senate leaders could have even more grave consequences for the future of the Senate. They won’t be alone in deserving the blame, but some could say they started the fire.

If the Republicans are able to confirm Barrett, and if the Democrats later win a majority and respond with their own political tactics, the parties may simply take each other on a never-ending downward spiral. A spiral that, if it continues and intensifies as it has for the last 10 years, will rid the Senate of all reason and replace it with publicity grabs for votes. This isn’t the purpose of the Senate, and this isn’t the purpose of the federal government. 

The Barrett nomination is a risky move for Republicans for this exact reason: it has the ability to erode the Senate even further. 

Jack Schlafly is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at jcschlaf@syr.edu.

Published on October 12, 2020 at 1:02 am