Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a master of language and argument. No matter one’s judgment of his judicial legacy, it’s hard not to have been awed by his choice of words and often obscure phrases. Calling out the majority’s reasoning in the recent King v. Burwell health-care decision probably takes the cake, as Scalia termed it “interpretive jiggery-pokery.”
Fittingly, interpretive jiggery-pokery abounds this weekend about the norms and rules that govern the filling of Supreme Court and other judicial vacancies. No more so than by Republican leaders and presidential candidates seeking to stop the Senate from voting to confirm a fourth Obama nominee to the Supreme Court. With a tip of the hat to the late justice, these claims strike me as “pure applesauce,” if not argle-bargle.
Some reactions to these claims about the Senate’s conduct of advice and consent for judicial nominations. CONT.
Sarah Binder (George Washington U.), The Monkey Cage