Why congress has such a low approval rating (supreme court)

[siamese3]

I am so saddened that members of congress could not come to some agreement on the supreme court such nomination. I am not going to pass judgement, or blame the republicans or democrats. I feel that there is plenty of blame to go around for both sides over the recent years. I wish that members of the senate could see that in these highly partisan times, when people have such a low opinion of congress, that if they could come out and make some kind of bipartisan statement saying that they felt that both sides had made mistakes in the past in how things were handled and that in the best interests of American people, they could come up with some compromise to show us that the American people are more important the partisan politics. They already know that the people don't have great confidence in Congress, and I feel like it would have been an incredible moment to begin to heal divides in politics, to work across the aisle and show us that they want to get back to making congress work. I wish that we could stop the destructive cycle of "winners" and "losers" and get back to agreements where compromise has value and no one gets everything they want, but both sides get something and American wins. We need real leadership.

 

[ruby59]

Tit for tat seems to be the rule of the day.

 

[AnnaH]

Agree, S3. I see what Republicans had to gain--their pick, fufilling campaign promises. How does this help Democrats? Playing to the base?
But then I also didn't understand why Republicans didn't allow the supposedly more moderate Garland through rather than a more liberal Clinton pick. After all, everyone thought she would be the next president. And then Trump won. So it worked out for Republicans. The only thing I could figure is they didn't believe Garland was moderate. They sure didn't think Trump would win.
I listened to an interesting podcast, which I hope to finish as I was interrupted. It was David Garrow. He's known for his biography of MLK. He was talking about his new bio of Obama but was also discussing current events. He's very concerned with justices serving well into their 80's. Said some past and present were/are incompetent. Said that a past justice was just ignored by the others because he was so out of it. This was some time ago. Not reassuring.

 

[ruby59]

I have deep concerns about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, especially after seeing her sleeping through Obama's speeches to Congress.

I know she suffers from heat disease and had cancer At age 84 I wonder how much longer she can serve.

 

[AnnaH]

Garrow is worried about her, too. He's a Dem, so thought she should have retired in time for Obama to appoint her replacement. He wants mandatory retirement at 75. Some think the term should be limited, such as 15 yr. service, but I think that takes an amendment.