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Saturday, March 19, 2016

Supreme Court Nomination and Hearings

My brain has been reeling at the profound arrogance and willful truculence of the Republican U.S. Senators in their obstruction of the Supreme Court Nomination and Confirmation process.

I recently received an email from AFSCME (public employees trade union). They are calling for demonstrations at the offices of our local obstructionist Senator Toomey. While I could not agree more with the intent, I was disappointed in the same old paradigm. We strongly disagree with the actions of our representatives and then we go chanting in the street. Sure, these demonstrations have occasionally had some positive effect throughout history. More often, it seems to me that they were largely a feel good exercise for the protestors. While any protest/demonstration will be noticed by a Senator (or the staff at the local office), protests are ephemeral. They persist for a few hours and fade into memory- often taking any uncomfortable feeling with them.

On the other hand, if a Senator’s office had a line of people outside the door each and every morning waiting patiently to address the staff members with their concerns, this would be a persistent “challenge”. What if, every local office of every obstructionist Senator had a line of people from the time they opened until the time they closed, each one calmly determined to state their desire for that Senator to do his or her job?


Given that the nomination of a U.S. Supreme Court justice is one of the most important and significant events in our Democratic Republic, I suggest easily rivaling the election of a President, could something like this be organized? Should it be? Is there a better idea?