Nuclear Fallout

Anyone who had any doubts of the Democrats real goals on executing the “Nuclear Option” on judges should have no doubts now after the narrow confirmation of Pamela Harris with only 50 votes yesterday.  The Democrats are trying to pack the courts. 

In addition to breaking the rules to change the rules they are also breaking tradition to pack the Circuit Courts to try and influence decisions:

The Senate typically votes on judges in order. That didn't happen with Harris. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brought up Harris' nomination before that of Jill Pryor, who had been waiting for a vote to sit on the Eleventh Circuit. The Senate voted, 50-43, to confirm Harris.

The Fourth Circuit became a key battleground last week over the Obama administration's domestic agenda when a three-judge panel sided with the government in a dispute over health care subsidies. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, took to the floor ahead of the Harris vote to express his dismay about the timing of the confirmation vote.

"Professor Harris is being fast-tracked to the Fourth Circuit, just in time for another en banc appeal, should one materialize," Grassley said.

In a floor statement on Friday, Ranking Judiciary Committee Member Grassley was more explicit:

So, it seems pretty clear to me that the timing of the vote on this nominee is not coincidental.   We know this because of yesterday’s Obamacare decisions handed down by the D.C. Circuit and the Fourth Circuit.

 Last November, when the Majority changed the cloture rule on judicial nominees, I told my colleagues that the decision was a blatant attempt to stack the D.C. Circuit with judges who would view sympathetically the administration’s arguments in upcoming Obamacare lawsuits.

 The other side dismissed the notion that the rules change was designed to tilt the courts in the President’s direction and salvage Obamacare.

Well, as we all know, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit decided the Halbig case yesterday, against the administration.

 And it only took the administration about an hour to announce that it would seek rehearing by the en banc D.C. Circuit, which now includes four of the president’s nominees.

As we all know, the Majority Leader rushed through three of those four immediately after the rules change.  And yesterday the Majority Leader finally admitted that the upcoming en banc panel on the Halbig ruling vindicated his decision to go nuclear.

 He said: “I think if you look at simple math, it does.”

So, the Majority Leader isn’t even trying to disguise his intent any more.

 And that’s exactly what’s happening here with this nominee, on her way to the Fourth Circuit.  This nomination is being considered ahead of other circuit nominees on the Executive Calendar.

 Why is this Fourth Circuit nomination being fast-tracked?

 Why fast-track one of the most liberal nominees we have considered to date?

 If history is any guide, the answer is simple.

 It’s all about saving Obamacare.

The other side wants to stack the Fourth Circuit just like they did the D.C. Circuit.  Because the Fourth Circuit hears a disproportionate number significant cases involving federal law and regulations, just like the D.C. Circuit.

And there should be no doubt where Harris stands, it is wherever the party and the left want her to:

As you may remember, Harris is the judicial nominee who thinks the Warren Court wasn’t liberal enough, that the Constitution gets its meaning “from what comes after” its enactment, and who thinks that Supreme Court justices should shift their legal views with the tides of public opinion.

Obama may be a failure as a President but thanks to Harry Reid he is becoming the first President to so blatantly pack the courts.