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- How We Get a Bove
J sent me a link to this TPM piece on how Bove’s nomination came about:
President Trump nominated Bove to a seat that had been occupied by Judge Joseph A. Greenaway. President Barack Obama nominated Greenaway to the seat in June 2009, filling a vacancy opened up by the departure of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. For the Democrats, that was a net gain. Greenaway retired from the bench in June 2023, during a 51-seat Democratic Senate majority.
In theory, with more than a year before the next election, that was more than enough time for Senate Democrats to fill the seat. President Biden nominated Adeel Mangi in November 2023. Mangi would have been the first Muslim to serve as a federal circuit judge.
During his first hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on December of that year, Senate Republicans redirected the focus away from the law, and onto Mangi’s background. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) raised Mangi’s involvement with Muslim community organizations, and asked at one point if he condemned Hamas. All of this took place weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The Judiciary Committee advanced Mangi to a full Senate vote. But within months, reports began to emerge that Senate Democrats were telling the White House that there weren’t enough votes to confirm Mangi. Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) both said publicly that they wouldn’t vote to confirm Mangi; then-Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he would only consider nominees with bipartisan support. The White House refused to withdraw Mangi’s nomination. By the end of 2024, Democrats and Mangi himself were calling the process “fundamentally broken.”
The impasse left Trump to fill the seat, giving conservatives another seat on a Circuit Court that had been closely split with six Democrat-appointed judges and seven Republican appointees.
Trump left the seat open until May, when he nominated Bove.
So, Biden nominated a Muslim, and instead we get a fascist.
There are a number of lessons to take home from this. First, if Democrats ever get a trifecta again, or even the Senate plus the Presidency, the Senate needs to get off their leaden asses and rubber stamp the President’s nominations, tout suite. Delay in the Senate is death, and come on, who really gives a shit about a Democratic judicial nomination? We know that whomever is nominated as a judge by a Democratic President is, if anything, more timid than they should be, and certainly overqualified.
Second, the days of the drama queen Senators has to end. Part of this is a function of the Majority Leader. The last tough Majority Leader was Harry Reid, and the last really tough Majority Leader was LBJ. LBJ’s hand-picked successor, Mike Mansfield, worked hand-in-glove with LBJ to get the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passed. Our situation now is similar to what LBJ and Mansfield faced in the mid 60’s, except that the majority that a Democratic Majority Leader has will be tiny.
In the case of Mangi, If the Nevada Senators couldn’t vote for a Muslim, was that communicated to the White House clearly? Did Biden just ignore them? What the fuck happened here? It was clearly political malpractice.
We just can’t take any more of this weak bullshit. For the many missteps and disorganization shown by the Trump/Musk administration, it’s clear that they came to office with a plan and that they’re enforcing party discipline in Congress with an iron fist. That’s what we’re up against. If we’re ever lucky enough to get a Senate majority again, we need to take it as seriously as the Republicans are doing now.
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