Paul Bass Photo
Michael Wishnie in the WNHH studio Tuesday.
Mike Wishnie, who directs Yale Law School’s legal services programs, says he is optimistic, perhaps foolishly so, that that there will be a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court before President Obama leaves office. He says time and the reelection efforts of Republican senators may turn the tide away from nay-sayers.
Wishnie made those comments today during an appearance on WNHH radio’s “Legal Eagle” program. He discussed a variety of issues, including immigration, the Yale Law clinic’s newly filed Ebola quarantine case and the plight of veterans.
At the Eagle’s suggestion, we began our conversation about the biggest legal story in the nation today, the successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday. Senate Republicans are mounting a fierce fight to stall the nomination through 2016 so that the next president gets to select Scalia’s successor.
“Certainly they have the ability to refuse to confirm a nominee if they want, but I think as time passes through spring and summer … it will become increasingly difficult for them,” Wishnie predicted. “I think if they try to run out the clock and delay this until 2017, they will suffer. They will see that the country as a whole is not well-served without a functioning court to decide issues, to provide some resolutions.
“I think the country will become frustrated. I think some of the Republican senators who are up for reelection this fall, particularly those in purple or even blue states, will find it harder and harder to explain to their voters why they are resisting what I believe is likely to be a very qualified nominee,” he said.
“I have no more insight than anyone else,” Wishnie said, adding he was glad President Obama moved on the appointment process quickly and that he did not defer.
Everyone is talking about this issue, he said. The Eagle asked if he thought there was anyone who could win approval in the Republican-led Senate this year. Wishnie referred to two younger sitting federal judges, specifically Paul J. Watford of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; and Sri Srinivasan, who sits on the D.C. Court of Appeals and was confirmed by unanimous vote in 2013.
Then Wishnie said, there is “our own Harold Koh here in town … We could not do better as a nation than to have Harold on the court,” he said of the former dean of the Yale Law School and the legal adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
He observed that Watford and Srinivasan “have recently been confirmed by more or less the sameSenate. I think President Obama is likely to make it difficult for the Republicans. He will choose somebody soon and he will choose somebody whose credentials are very strong, who has no personal scandal.” In short, a person similar to the kind of person “the Senate has historically confirmed.”
“This is why I am optimistic, perhaps foolishly so. I am optimistic that actually there will be a nominee. Not immediately, even though there should be. I think it will just become more and more difficult for Republicans to resist and they will pay an increasing price.”
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full WNHH interview with Wishnie.
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Did Wishnie watch the cable news channels before offering these remarks? Because - point for point - his remarks match what several democrat pols and political analysts already said on 3 cable networks plus NPR over the past 24 hours. Hardly original. Was he reading from some party talking points sheet?