Dashing liberal hopes on Supreme Court nomination?

streiff:

Right now the left is chasing its tail concocting bullsh** theories on how it can stop President Trump from nominating a conservative justice to the Supreme Court. SPOILER ALERT: they can’t. The are only two things that will prevent the nomination and confirmation of a justice like Neil Gorsuch (I’m still waiting for the Never Trump people to reprise their whining “b-b-b-but Gorsuch” nonsense as though the confirmation of Supreme Court justices actually didn’t matter). The first is that Trump will lose his nerve, imagine that he can be pals with Chuck Schumer and go for a “unity” nomination.
...
The second danger, as I pointed out yesterday, is that enough GOP senators, either from love of baby-killing or just from spite, will bolt the caucus that Trump’s nominee can’t win confirmation.

That latter path may have just been foreclosed.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine will not apply an ideological litmus test to the next Supreme Court nominee, her spokeswoman said Thursday.

Collins’ position, which is consistent with her past practice on high court nominees, means she won’t factor a nominee’s support for the landmark abortion-rights ruling of Roe v. Wade into her confirmation decision.
…
“When Senator Collins evaluates judges, she always looks at their judicial temperament; qualifications; experience; and respect for precedent, the rule of law, and the Constitution,” Collins spokeswoman Annie Clark said via email. “These are exactly the same criteria she applied when she evaluated President Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, President Obama’s nominees, and President Trump’s most recent nominee.”

“Senator Collins does not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees,” Clark said

Stare decisis is good and all but let’s not make a fetish of it. If we did Plessy v. Ferguson would still be the law of the land–just as Korematsu vs. US is. Just this week a major case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education was reversed for much the same reason. It became clear after testing that the legal framework was incompatible with the Constitution.
...

I think it is more likely that some Democrats will break ranks than any Republican will.  There are several Democrats in Red States that Trump carried by large margins who are defending their seats this year.  Some of them may find it expedient to vote for the nominee as a matter of survival.