It’s too easy to dump on Governor LePage; however, let’s consider who and what he is in a different light.
If he recognizes and voices the clear intent of the Constitution regarding the reciprocal obligations of President and Senate for SCOTUS nominations, how many other TPers, resentful and wary of government in general, feel the same way (though they may not say it)? Unless LePage has lost touch with the Mainiacs who twice elected him, this could be a good sign for President Obama about the mood of the country supporting his decision to nominate Scalia’s replacement.
Remember, Maine’s TPers are similar to those everywhere else!
“I’m a big constitutionalist,” LePage told the Maine Sun Journal.
He said that with a straight face on the eve of the first anniversary of his very own “pocket veto” fiasco. Easily one of the dumbest, most ridiculous, procedural sagas in US gubernatorial history.
“If it’s in the Constitution, I think it means something.”
About the mood of the country. Going unreported is the growing reality that the more people are told about the history of SCOTUS nominations, the more they tend to agree that the Senate should consider the president’s nomination, not delay it. SCOTUS vacancies don’t happen very often, and election-year vacancies are rarer still. The last time a vacancy occurred during a president’s last year in office was almost 50 years ago, under Lyndon B. Johnson (although the vacancy occurred later, in June).
The downside of this somewhat hopeful news is that the president himself is a factor with voters who do not support him saying the nomination should be delayed until a new administration is in place. Clearly, history alone won’t budge them.
Forty-six percent of registered voters said that the next justice should be nominated by the president this year, and 39 percent said the winner of the 2016 presidential election should be the one to put forth a nominee, according to a poll conducted Monday and Tuesday by Morning Consult, a digital media and polling company. (The remaining 15 percent of respondents said they didn’t know or had no opinion.)
