WASHINGTON – Why did Democrats filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch? Because they’ve had enough with the politics of power grabbing and bullying.
At the root of this fight was the long-term conservative effort to dominate the Supreme Court and turn it to the political objectives of the right.
This was thus about far more than retaliation, however understandable, for the Senate Republicans’ refusal to give even a hearing to Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the seat Gorsuch would fill. Behind the most recent judicial struggle was a series of highly politicized Supreme Court rulings.
It started with Bush v. Gore, when five conservative justices abruptly halted the recount of Florida’s ballots in the 2000 election and made George W. Bush president.
The unsigned majority opinion unmasked (to use the word of the moment) the unprincipled and unmistakably results-oriented nature of the decision with this lovely little sentence: “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”