[champagnois]

>>Though lawful, Republicans ... refused to 'seat' nominee...

[Party B] followed the rules. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to appoint a judge, and so no judge was appointed. [Party B] is under no obligation to assist [Party A].

>> They (Party B) then flipped those rules

[Party B] changed no rules. [Party B] had the votes to appoint a judge, and so a judge was appointed. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to oppose it.

[dillondoyle]

Republicans changed an actual written down rule - the 'nuclear option.' Republicans did not have the 60 votes needed. So they changed the rules.

Beyond that factually, like a lot of things in the US govt, rules can be institutional momentum and tradition instead of actual laws. For sure that's debatable use of the word rules but I think in practice for the last century a lot of these unwritten machinations of government moved along without politics getting in the way.

The Thurmond rule is an example of this specifically on SCOTUS confirmations.

Logically or legally right or wrong, Republicans didn't even allow an up or down vote. I think there was a small chance 5 Rs could have voted for Gorsuch maybe not. Obviously not 14 to break cloture.

Trump is the king of destroying the un-written guardrails which have protected the country.

[dillondoyle]

* i was just looking at comments and realized I typed gorsuch when i meant to be talking about obama nominee Garland