{"id":181871,"date":"2016-02-24T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/02\/24\/the-official-hat-of-team-obama\/"},"modified":"2016-02-24T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T00:34:00","slug":"the-official-hat-of-team-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/02\/24\/the-official-hat-of-team-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"The Official Hat of Team Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
A Spelunking Helmet for Frequent Cavers<\/i><\/div>\n

There are reports taht Barack Obama is considering Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval as a Supreme Court appointment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The White House is considering picking the Republican governor from Nevada to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, scrambling political calculations in what is expected to be a contentious confirmation battle in which Senate Republicans have pledged to play the role of roadblock.<\/span>

<\/span> President Obama is weighing the selection of Brian Sandoval, a centrist former federal judge who has served as governor since 2011, according to two people familiar with the process. Though the review process is in its initial phases and it is unclear whether the governor could ultimately emerge as the president\u2019s pick, even the prospect of his nomination poses a difficult dilemma for Senate Republicans who have promised not to consider any nomination before November\u2019s elections.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the kicker though, it turns out that Sandoval has explicitely called Obamacare unconstitutional<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The Washington Post reports that the White House is vetting Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor of Nevada who once labeled President Obama\u2019s signature health law \u201cunconstitutional,\u201d as a possible nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Sandoval previously served as a federal district judge, the lowest rank of judges who receive lifetime appointments, for just under four years. He resigned to run for governor in 2009.<\/span>

<\/span> Though the Post claims that \u201cSandoval is increasingly viewed by some key Democrats as perhaps the only nominee President Obama could select who would be able to break a Republican blockade in the Senate,\u201d the second-ranking Senate Republican poured cold water on this idea almost immediately after the Post\u2019s report went live. According to Politico\u2019s Burgess Everett, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) \u201csays [it] doesn\u2019t make a difference if Sandoval is the nominee.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> The fact that Obama would consider naming Sandoval is surprising, given the governor\u2019s past statements on the Affordable Care Act. In his first State of the State Address in 2011, Sandoval said that \u201cmany aspects of the law are unconstitutional\u201d and he pledged to \u201ccontinue to fight to have them overturned.\u201d He later personally signed briefs filed in the Supreme Court arguing against the law\u2019s constitutionality and claiming that the Supreme Court \u201cshould hold the ACA invalid in its entirety.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> It\u2019s worth noting that, after losing this case, Sandoval did agree to implement provisions of the law, such as its Medicaid expansion. Nevertheless, if Sandoval\u2019s position had prevailed in the Supreme Court, Obamacare would have completely ceased to exist.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I understand that Obama is looking for items to bolster his legacy, and getting another Supreme Court justice confirmed by the Senate would be a feather in his cap, but Sandoval is only 52, and would likely be on the court for more than 25 years.<\/p>\n

I understand your need to do your PPUS (P<\/b><\/u>ost P<\/b><\/u>artisan U<\/b><\/u>nity S<\/b><\/u>chtick), and I know that you really<\/b> want to appoint another justice, but it’s not worth it if you have to appoint a bad<\/b> justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Spelunking Helmet for Frequent Cavers There are reports taht Barack Obama is considering Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval as a Supreme Court appointment: The White House is considering picking the Republican governor from Nevada to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court, scrambling political calculations in what is expected to be a contentious confirmation …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,998,972,978,982,979],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-congress","category-justice","category-politics","category-stupid","category-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}