• @PunnyName
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    2 months ago

    Potentially. A SCOTUS seat opened when Obama was in office, but Republicans actively prevented it from being filled.

    A great Innuendo Studios video about this behavior: https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      The pressure campaign for RBG to retire was when democrats still held a senate majority with 53 seats. Republicans blocked Obama’s SCOTUS appointment when they held the senate majority. In 2016, republicans simply just didn’t allow a vote to happen because the senate leader sets the vote schedule. The nuclear option had already been invoked by that very same dem caucus on all other presidential nominations too.

      The scenarios look similar on a surface level but in the details that matter they are leagues apart. If RBG had retired in 2013 or (most of) 2014, her replacement would been confirmed, barring a Kavanaugh-sized scandal. Either republicans would have provided the seven votes needed to secure cloture, or Reid would have invoked the nuclear option to lower the cloture requirement on SCOTUS nominees to a bare majority, like all other positions. Either way the nominee would have been confirmed.