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| Bipartisanship is as big a fantasy these days ... |
How
else to explain the knee-jerk rejection given by the Republicans in Congress
and on the presidential campaign trail to the very idea of permitting Obama to
make an appointment to fill the vacancy now on the Supreme Court of the United
States.
TO
LISTEN TO the conservative ideologues who fear a high court that isn’t rigged
in their favor, the Republic can only be preserved by keeping a seat open for
more than a year – or perhaps longer if the voters get delusional (from their
perspective) enough to pick a Democrat to be the new president come 2017.
Keep
in mind that the vacancy creates the potential for a lot of 4-4 splits on
upcoming cases – and it takes five justices to back a ruling for it to take
effect.
In
short, 4-4 maintains the status quo – and likely means a lot of efforts to
protect the rights of people who don’t fit into the narrow vision of what
conservatives think our society ought to be will go down the tubes.
Now
I don’t know how this whole Supreme Court political battle will play out this
year – other than that I expect the Republican majorities that now run both the
Senate and House of Representatives are stubborn enough to refuse to act on
filling a vacancy.
THE
ONE IN which Obama makes an appointment and the Senate gives its consent as to
whether or not to accept said appointment. A whole lot of nothing is going to
come up, all in the name of preserving our “way of life.”
Or
at least the vision of our life that the ideologues want to preserve!
But
this is just one of many issues that have become over-politicized in recent
years by a Republican faction of Congress determined to prevent the duly-elected
president of 2008 and 2012 to do a damned thing that would give him a lasting
legacy.
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| ... as the idea of another all-Chicago World Series in our lifetimes |
Which
could easily have been the outcome of the Harold Washington mayoral years if
not for that redistricting of ’86 that enabled a Washington-allied majority to
take control of our City Council.
UNFORTUNATELY
FOR OBAMA, there isn’t any chance of a restructuring of Congress during his
presidency. It will be the political weakness of the Democrats who ought to
have been Obama’s allies that they allowed control of Congress to shift away
from them during his presidency.
All
of which is why I find it odd to hear the ongoing quarrels over redistricting.
Yes it is true that the current system is convoluted and creates districts in
Congress and the General Assembly that bear little resemblance to the reality
of our communities.
But
I have my moments of disbelief that this effort with the backing of Gov. Bruce
Rauner is really interested in representing the people.
With
so many other states having political structures that produce
Republican-leaning public officials in their Legislatures and Congress, it
seems they’re interested in eradicating a system in Illinois that won’t go
along with their program.
THE
REASON, OF course, that Illinois’ structure winds up being Democrat-sympathetic
is because of the dominance of Chicago in this state and the fact that the
modern-day Republican Party is openly hostile toward urban areas.
If
we gave someone like Rauner the General Assembly of his choice, it would be
equally unrepresentative of the people of Illinois – particularly the
two-thirds of the state’s population that lives in the six northeastern-most
counties.
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| OBAMA: Nobody listened! |
And
yes, I remember the days of 1995-96 when Illinois government was Republican
dominated – all of its actions were geared toward putting a leash upon Chicago.
All this talk by Republicans comes off as little more than bitterness that they’re
no longer capable of running roughshod over the state like they once tried to
do.
All
the more reason to believe that Obama’s talk of bipartisanship was cute, but
not likely to take hold. Not here in Illinois, or anywhere else in this nation.
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