A thread to detail the trials and tribulations of our favored band of merry inept losers, the Democratic Party.
We begin tonight with the Dem stronghold of New York State, where recently re-elected governor Kathy Hochul is insisting on nominating the worst choice imaginable to be the new Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals (which, because New York insists on doing things idiotically, is the highest court in the state; they also have a Supreme Court, which is bizarrely a lower-level court than this):
The Commission on Judicial Nomination gave Hochul seven options across the ideological spectrum, including several liberals. Yet she picked LaSalle, touting the fact that he’d be the first Latino chief judge while ignoring his alarming record. If confirmed, he is all but guaranteed to shore up the right-wing majority. His record as an intermediate appeals court judge demonstrates a deep hostility to the very values that Hochul claimed she wanted to uphold with this appointment.
What the fuck??? Thankfully, Democrats in the state Senate are stepping up and showing a spine on this:
You’d think that, getting busted for making an awful pick and facing this kind of opposition, maybe Hochul would back down…butnahhhhh she’s going all in:
NY swung pretty hard to the right in the last election relative to the rest of the country;
Pretty much everyone believes that a large part of that shift was due to the perception of NY’s bail reform laws. Hochul definitely believes this;
Hochul is an upstate moderate, and nearly lost because of NY’s rightward swing and is likely trying to compensate; and
LaSalle is being portrayed a bit unfairly here. He’s not some hard-right judge, he’s at worst a “moderate” NY democrat. The “controversial” decisions that keep getting reported about him (that he joined, not that he even authored) all were decided on hypertechnical issues, he’s not actually anti-abortion, or anti-union. The appellate division that he heads is a liberal court and he has authored plenty of liberal decisions.
Beyond the standard political calculus, LaSalle is an incredibly well respected jurist. Amongst everyone that actually knows him and works with him, including amongst liberal members of the bench and bar who have actually appeared in front of him, he is held in the highest regard.
Yeah I think the point on #3 and bail reform is a good point. I wonder if the Dem infighting is a bit of kayfabe? An AOC vs Manchin both win by fighting each other situation?
Progressives hit Hochul and show some fight, Hochul boosts her moderate creds.
On the spectrum from “Merrick Garland” to “average poster on this board,” he’s in between, but definitely closer to Merrick Garland then, say Commonwealth. However, it’s really hard to quantify that sort of thing at state level decision-making in most instances. Joining an opinion denying a subpoena for records of a group that is possibly interfering with abortion on a hyper technical issue is not the same thing as striking down Roe v. Wade.
The Ninth Circuit struck down the law in question as unconstitutional, and now SCOTUS will decide. The LOL Democrats part of this:
In urging the Supreme Court to hear the new case, United States v. Hansen, No. 22-179, the Biden administration said the Ninth Circuit’s decision striking down the law was “a substantial impediment to the nationwide administration of the immigration laws.”
And of course, found at the Biden Center, not at a private golf club, and turned over immediately when found, but of course the right will “BOTHSIDES!!!” This bullshit.
On the one hand women typically live longer than men, on the other he’s got his Senate seat locked up until 2028. So it depends whether it’s a last longer in the Senate or alive on this planet, as to who has edge.
Do they know it like in general, or at any given moment? Or is it more like she may know she’s 89 but she also think it’s 1957 and this Elvis Presley sure is dreamy?