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Re: “Gardner won’t defy move to fill vacancy,” Sept. 22 news story and “Gardner flip- flop shows he is a man lacking conviction,” Sept. 22 editorial
Donald Trump is the president of the United States and he will be the POTUS for at least another four months. Period.
The Senate is controlled by Republicans and it will be controlled by Republicans for at least another four months. Period.
A vacancy on the Supreme Court exists. There is nothing in the Constitution nor in federal law that prevents the president and the Senate from doing their job in duly filling that vacancy in a timely manner so that the SCOTUS is fully staffed with nine justices, which avoids a 4- 4 tie.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats can object all they want to, but what they are actually objecting to is the right of the POTUS and the Senate to do their job.
Any suggestion by Biden, Pelosi, or any Democrat that Trump and the Senate do not have the “constitutional authority” to nominate and confirm a justice to fill that vacancy before November or January is blatantly at odds with what the Constitution itself allows. Period.
Robert E Forman, Lakewood
Sen. Cory Gardner took only two days to assess the pulse of the state and discovered that Coloradans want him to be a man of no principle. And he has the good grace to follow their lead.
Despite his conviction in 2016 that “Our next election is too soon and the stakes are too high; the American people deserve a role in this process as the next Supreme Court Justice will influence the direction of this country for years to come,” he was persuaded by the overwhelming pressure of his constituents to change course.
Now, in 2020, he declares that “when a President exercises constitutional authority to nominate a judge for the Supreme Court vacancy, the Senate must decide how to best fulfill its constitutional duty of advice and consent” and has pledged to support a qualified nominee.
Oh, wait. He did not take time to consult his constituents? He just decided on his own to be another sycophant falling in line behind Sen. Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump?
Senator, thank you for sharing that. A man of no convictions is just what we want for a U. S. Senator.
Douglas Willey, Highlands Ranch
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With the exception of our bloody Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy, we Americans have settled our political differences in the ballot booth, the Halls of Congress, or within our Courtrooms.
In the 2000 presidential election, the Supreme Court of Florida and then the U. S. Supreme Court reluctantly entered into the political fray, expending huge amounts of institutional goodwill in contentious chad counting litigation, which did not sit well with many voters.
The highly polarized 2020 election appears, by all accounts, to be careening towards a similar situation, only exponentially worse.
If the current Supreme Court with eight justices produces a 4 to 4 split vote, a very ugly non- resolution will erupt. By confirming a new justice before the election, the probability of a peaceful judicial resolution versus one on the streets of every American city is greatly increased. I prefer peace. Richard Erickson, Broomfield