Why Mitch McConnell outmaneuvers Democrats in filling the Supreme Court

Consider what happened after McConnell blocked the Garland nomination. After a few days of perfunctory outrage, most Democratic politicians dropped the issue. Neither President Obama nor Hillary Clinton, in their speeches before the Democratic National Convention, in July, 2016, even mentioned Garland—or the Supreme Court. Its future was apparently something that neither of them wanted to discuss, or thought that their party, or the nation, wanted to hear about.

Four years later, this pattern is recurring. Consider, for example, the Web sites of three leading contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Each site has thousands of words outlining the candidates’ positions on the issues—and none of them mentions Supreme Court nominations, much less nominations for lower-court judges. These omissions are especially striking in Biden’s case, because he served for decades on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including several years as the chair. He voted on more than a dozen Supreme Court confirmations (including, of course, that of Clarence Thomas) and, as Vice-President, he helped Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan win approval in the Senate. Likewise, since Warren was a law professor before she ran for office, she might be expected to focus on the significance of the Court. But, for the most part, Democrats barely mention it.

It’s difficult to pinpoint why Republicans are so much more motivated by the Supreme Court than Democrats are. Complacency could be part of the reason.