Sunday School 10/7/18

Lots going on today in the Sunday classrooms, but I only had the heart and stomach for one of them- Fox News Sunday, where Chris Wallace interviewed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Wallace started out by asking if the record of judicial appointments under Trump - two Supremes and 26 judges on the circuit court, the fastest pace in history - was McConnells' proudest moment as a senator. Here's McConnell's answer:

I think so. I think the most important thing the Senate is involved in is the personnel business. The House is not in the personnel business. And of the various 1200 appointments that come to us for confirmation, obviously the most important are the lifetime appointments to the courts and we prioritize handling president Trump's outstanding nominees for the Supreme Court as well as the circuit courts and we've done 26 so far as you indicated, record, and there'll be more before the end of the year.

The next question was about McConnell receiving the support of Steve Bannon, who praised the Majority Leader's "strong leadership" after hard-right conservatives have been criticizing McConnell for being "too establishment." Having Bannon's approval, he said (to laughter)

It's almost an out-of-body experience, I must say.

He went on to talk about the last two years, and Tea Party criticism.

Well, it's pretty hard to be the majority leader of the Senate without getting some criticism. I'd rather be judged about my record, and I think this has been an extraordinarily accomplished Congress, in fact, the most productive two year period in the time I've been in the Senate, whether it's taxes, regulations... We've got the economy booming and we are making long-term systemic chances in the courts that will serve future generations of Americans in a very good way.

On that, I'd have a hard time disagreeing more, but that's  just me.

They also talked about Supreme Court seats in general, which included Wallace trying to get a straight answer out of McConnell on what he'd do if there was an open seat on the bench in 2020; he started this by getting McConnell to talk about Merrick Garland.

We didn't attach Merrick Garland's background and try to destroy him; we didn't go on a search and destroy mission. We simply followed the tradition in America, which is if you have a party - a Senate of a different party than the president, you don't fill a vacancy created in the presidential year. That went all the way back to 1888.

Wallace noted a difference between this answer and McConnell's previous comments, noting that when the Garland nomination was made, they wouldn't consider it during a presidential election year, but now he's saying it's only when the Senate is controlled by a different party than the president. And, he wondered, if Trump were to name someone in 2020, would the Senate go ahead with it?

Well, I understand your question, what I told you is what the history of the Senate has been. You have to go back to 1880 to find the last time a vacancy created in a presidential election year on the Supreme Court was confirmed by a Senate of a different party than the president. That's the history -- 

When pressed, he didn't answer.

The answer to your question is, we'll see if there's a vacancy in 2020.

The Senate isn't broken. The institution is fine.

The people there? Well, that's a story for another day.

See you around campus.