Laurence Tribe: I think I stand by my view that the VP can't break a Senate tie on confirming a judicial nominee
Allahpundit Jan 27, 2022 11:31 AM ET
I love the fact that this guy is leaving himself some wiggle room to change his mind about a piece of legal scholarship he wrote less than 18 months ago. He’d set some sort of land-speed record for partisan hackery if he ended up flipping, concluding that Mike Pence couldn’t cast a tiebreaking vote for Amy Coney Barrett but Kamala Harris can cast a tiebreaking vote for Biden’s forthcoming SCOTUS nominee.
I wrote about Tribe’s 2020 op-ed yesterday. He argued that there’s a meaningful difference between the VP’s power to break 50/50 ties on legislation, which is stated in Article I of the Constitution, and the Senate’s power to advise and consent to judicial nominees, which is stated in Article II. Alexander Hamilton didn’t believe the vice president could break ties on appointments, Tribe noted.
Now that it’s Democrats rather than Republicans who need to get a nominee through, does Tribe stand by his reasoning? Philip Wegmann of RCP reached out to him to ask. The answer: An emphatic “probably.”
Republicans are currently searching for any weapon to push back on whomever Biden nominates to the high court. Some influential commentators might flip their positions on the issue, but not Tribe. He told RealClearPolitics on Wednesday that he doubts he will change his mind just because the political winds have shifted.
“I wrote that piece around 15 months ago and have not thought about the issue since. I doubt that I would reach a new conclusion upon re-examining the matter,” he said, before adding with some regret, “Even though, given the current political circumstances, I obviously wish the situation were otherwise.”
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https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/01/27/laurence-tribe-i-think-i-stand-by-my-view-that-the-vp-cant-break-a-senate-tie-on-confirming-a-judicial-nominee-n444493
