Suggestions for ramming through conservative Supreme Court nominees

A recent conversation with David Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research prompted this entry. I've thought along similar lines to David's suggestions for quite some time.

Historically, the Senate used to just rubber stamp a President's nominees to the Supreme Court. The bitter political fights are a recent phenomena. Any President has a number of tools to get who he wants on the Court and shift the masses' bitterness to the Seante.

First, the President should notify the Senate that he has a long list of nominees and the Senate should be resigned to accept one of the nominees, no matter how objectionable, sooner or later because the nation has other business to deal with and the Senators will want to pass their bills. The President should have 2 sections to his list. The A section should be serious heavy-hitters who would make stellar Justices. The B section should be people of note that the Senate will reject out of hand...like Jerry Falwell, or Ralph Reed, or Grover Norquist. The purpose of the B section will hint at the extent of the President's patience with the Senate.

Once the Senate Judiciary Committee has the list of potential nominees, and the Senate receives the 1st nominee, the President should demand an immediate hearing and vote on the nominee or he'll refuse to sign their bills. If the Senate is not in session, the President should use his Article 2, Section 3, to convene the Senate until he gets a a nominee on the Court. Yep, that section suggests the power to convene Congress arises from extraordinary occasions. As far as I'm concerned, I think the filling of a Supreme Court seat is pretty extraordinary.

Finally, if a Supreme Court justice is wily enough to announce his retirement, or happens to die, while the Senate is recessed, the President should use his Article 2, Section 2 power to make recess appointments without hesitation.

Now, I intimately understand that this works both ways. If we have another socialist President like TR, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, or Clinton, we could end up with horrors like Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter. But that makes Presidential nominations all the more urgent and may energize the parties' bases. In fact, that's the way things used to be. In this nation, we used to have something called the spoils system. The winner of a Presidential election used to oust the workers of the previous administration and install his own people. That system took considerable heat under good ole' Andy Jackson's reign. So, we have a historic precedent of the winner taking all. If it means taking Supreme Court seats...so be it.