AND THE ARGUMENT FALLS APART

The talking point from Republicans is that President Obama should not nominate a new Supreme Court justice because it is a presidential election year.

During the most recent Republican presidential debate, Senators Marco Rubio (FL, R) and Ted Cruz (TX, R) repeated the line that the last time a Supreme Court justice was confirmed during a presidential election year was in 1932.

That is not true.

To find the proof, you have to look at the current court itself.

IT’S ALL THERE

“and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States,”

- United States Constitution, Article II, Section 2

ANTONIN SCALIA (1936-2016)

FIRST-DEGREE BERN

In the first installment of What Have We Learned So Far, I teased the prospect of what has been learned so far in the Democratic Primary.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

One of the reasons why I like politics is because nothing remains the same. It is always changing and you never know where the narrative is going. It is like living in an episode of The West Wing or House of Cards.

I have decided to start a new feature called “What Have We Learned So Far?” for this election. It just came to me one day. What was true about this election might not be true tomorrow. I am also sensing something about this election that it is not like any other cycles our country has seen in recent history.

For instance: I regularly follow FiveThirtyEight. One of the things that their writers track is the endorsement primary. A candidate gets points based on what endorsement that candidate receives: 1 point for a US Representative, 5 points for a US Senator, and 10 points for a governor. The basis of this scoring system is that there are nearly 5 times as many US reps as there are US Senators (ok, 4.35 to be exact, rounding makes the math easier) and twice as many senators as there are governors.

SUPER BOWL 50

CAROLINA PANTHERS vs. DENVER BRONCOS

4 PM (MT) CBS (online)