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WASHINGTON When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital last weekend after another in a string of health scares, blue America breathed a sigh of relief. Only one more month, many whispered, until the start of a presidential election year when filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court would be off limits in the Senate.

But would it?

That was the case in 2016 when Senate Republicans stonewalled President Barack Obamas nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to fill an opening that occurred with 11 months left in Mr. Obamas tenure. Let the people decide, was the Republican mantra at the time, as they argued that it was improper to consider Mr. Obamas nominee when voters were only months away from electing a new president who should get the opportunity to make his or her own choice on a Supreme Court justice.

But with the tables turned and Republicans holding the White House, that almost certainly would not be their refrain in 2020 if a court seat were to open up through death or retirement.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, majority leader and unapologetic mastermind of the 2016 Garland blockade, has made clear that he would move ahead with a Supreme Court nominee from President Trump. The only potential barrier would be resistance from his own party on the grounds it would be hypocritical and unfair for Republicans to do what they prevented Democrats from doing four years ago.

Widespread defections on that basis seem highly unlikely.

And Senator Susan Collins, the moderate Republican from Maine who broke with her party and backed holding a confirmation hearing and vote on Judge Garland in 2016, said she would take the same position in 2020: Should a vacancy arise, the sitting president should get the chance to choose a nominee, and the Senate should move forward to confirm.

My standard on the nomination of Supreme Court nominees remains the same, she said. As long as the president is in office, he has the constitutional right to nominate. I thought that Merrick Garland should have had a hearing and a vote. Now obviously, senators could have voted against him based on the timing. But to block the nomination from proceeding at all, I thought was wrong.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, oversaw the Judiciary Committee but refused to convene a hearing for Judge Garland and met with him only grudgingly. As a result, he said last year that he would not consider a nominee in 2020 if he were still chairman of the panel. But he has since left the top spot on the panel to take over the Finance Committee, sparing him the prospect of either going back on his word or infuriating Mr. Trump and his colleagues. Allies say they doubt he would take a stand against a nominee since he is no longer chairman.

Republicans say the difference between 2016 and 2020 is one of political alignment. Democrats held the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate in 2016; Republicans now control both. To Mr. McConnell and his colleagues, that shift justifies their new position. But in 2016, Republicans focused most of their argument against taking up Mr. Obamas nominee not on party control, but on the basis of the approaching presidential election, and they would face thunderous charges of hypocrisy if they took up a nomination next year.

Democrats remain angry over the treatment of both Mr. Obama and Judge Garland and expect Republicans to move aggressively if the chance arose for Mr. Trump to place a third nominee on the court. Should any nominee replace one of the four justices picked by Democratic presidents, it would cement a commanding 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and the lure of that lineup would probably prove irresistible to Republicans.

Do you have any Republican senator saying that in 2020 we wont ram through a Supreme Court nominee? asked Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a member of the Judiciary Committee. Of course they will.

Mr. Coons, an active player on judicial nominations, called the stonewalling of Judge Garland a man some Republicans had earlier said they would consider a strong choice by a Democratic president among the worst things the Republicans have done in my decade in the Senate. His colleagues agree. The dispute, which colored both the confirmation fights over Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, has badly frayed relationships both on the committee and in the Senate.

Should Republicans remain united, however, there is little Democrats could do to impede a nomination, because a series of rules changes has neutered the filibuster when it comes to judicial picks, meaning the majority party can push through the presidents choice without a single vote from the minority.

Though Democrats would lack procedural weapons, they and their allies say they would still mount a challenge using whatever tools available, and their attention would focus intently on the nominee. While it is hard to imagine proceedings more toxic than the Kavanaugh hearings, a move to install an election-year nominee with the specter of impeachment swirling in the capital would certainly be considered inflammatory by Democrats and those on the left.

Any scenario where an impeached president is trying to jam through a Supreme Court pick in an election year, in direct defiance of the precedent Mitch McConnell set with Merrick Garland in 2016, would rightly spark a war, said Brian Fallon, the head of Demand Justice, a progressive group formed in response to the Republican blockade of Judge Garland.

Mr. Coons said his preference would be that the conflict be avoided altogether and no vacancy arose. If one did, the fight would no doubt spill over into the presidential and congressional elections. It could also give momentum to calls by some Democratic presidential contenders and advocacy groups to reconfigure the court to offset what they see as an illegitimate conservative imbalance building support for ideas that have not yet been embraced by the party mainstream.

While there are few options we would have to stop that nominee before the election, my hope is it would mobilize Democrats at the polls to insist on restoring balance to the court, Mr. Coons said.

One wild card is the timing of any vacancy. Judge Garland was nominated to replace Antonin Scalia, who died in mid-February, a time frame that would ordinarily be well beyond the period needed to pick a nominee for Senate review and a confirmation vote if it had not been for the Republican refusal to take up the nomination. A vacancy that occurred later in 2020, much closer to the election, could present Republicans with a tougher argument to make, though there would no doubt be intense pressure for them to move forward no matter what the calendar said.

But with no vacancy imminent and Democrats holding their breath that none will occur just one thing is certain about a potential 2020 Supreme Court fight: It would be brutal for all involved.

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Why Republicans Will Sidestep Their Garland Rule for the Court in 2020 - The New York Times

Mamma mia! This is my reaction when I read Paul Mulshines columns in defense of President Donald Trumps corruption and abuse of power.

Mulshine is worse than even the Republicans in the impeachment inquiry, who day after day spent the time allotted to them trying to discredit the process, asking about the whistleblower (whose identity is protected by law), obfuscating and denying the facts, and showing a total disregard for the truth and the rule of law.

In his recent column (The whistleblower blew up a non-story, Nov, 24), Mulshine puts a new spin on it: The whistleblower revealed nothing that was not already known, and the president can do whatever he wants, including bribery.

Sorry, but nobody is above the law, not even the president. Trump has committed a serious crime, and the impeachment inquiry is a tool and a duty that the Congress has to defend our country from corruption and protect our democratic values.

Republicans in Congress too have sworn to defend the law and the Constitution, not to trump them every day in their defense of a lawless president.

Chiara Nappi, Princeton

The Russians are coming ... for N.J. elections

Longtime Russia expert Fiona Hill warned in her testimony in the impeachment inquiry that the Russians are going to hack into the 2020 election.

In 2018, the Democrats won almost all of the congressional seats in New Jersey, some by a very thin margin. The Republicans have vowed to take back those seats, so 2020 will see hard-fought races and potentially close elections. Because most of New Jersey votes on touchscreen machines without paper, a recount or audit is impossible. We will not be able to identify any hacking of the machines, foreign or domestic, and the machines themselves are very old and subject to breakdown or errors.

For 15 years, the Coalition for Peace Action has been calling for a transition to hand-marked paper ballots, optical scan machines to tabulate the votes, and ballot-marking devices for the disabled.

Neither Republican nor Democratic administrations have heeded this call, even though Gov. Phil Murphy made a signed campaign pledge to fund paper ballots and optical scan machines. It is time for the governor to fulfill his campaign promise.

I urge all those concerned to contact the governor and their county freeholders and demand hand-marked paper ballots for the 2020 primary.

Stephanie Harris, Hopewell; chair, Voting Integrity Task Force, Coalition for Peace Action

State bank is smart money for N.J.

A New Jersey state bank is an excellent step to take to begin bringing the power of capital back to the people and making their own tax money available for student loans, job creation and small businesses in the Garden State (Murphy starts ball rolling on a taxpayer-funded bank for N.J., Nov. 14). Kudos to Gov. Phil Murphy for taking this step. I look forward to being a depositor.

Anne Stires, Verona

Standardized testing benefits us all

Guest columnist Ikechukwu Onyema (Dump standardized testing programs in New Jersey schools, Nov. 17) effectively makes the case for standardized achievement testing, not against it.

Whether PARCC is properly designed is not the whole question. The high school teacher indicates he alone should be the arbiter of what and how well he teaches. Standardized achievement tests establish a basis for judging education and educators, not just students.

The extent that test scores merely reflect socioeconomic issues is vital in determining the need to improve life in this country and also identifying which approaches work. That is separate from assuring that a diploma has a meaning other than adequate attendance.

Leonard Gordy, South Orange

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Mamma mia! This defense of Trump is worse than the Republicans efforts | Letters - NJ.com

As of November 25, 2019, 1,839 candidates are filed with the FEC to run for U.S. House in 2020. Of those, 1,728864 Democrats and 864 Republicansare from one of the two major political parties. In 2018, 3,244 candidates filed with the FEC, including 1,566 Democrats and 1,155 Republicans.

295 candidates are filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to run for U.S. Senate in 2020. Of those, 257134 Democrats and 123 Republicansare from one of the two major political parties. In 2018, 527 candidates filed with the FEC to run for U.S. Senate, including 137 Democrats and 240 Republicans.

In the past week, no members of Congress announced 2020 retirements. To date, four Senators (three Republicans and one Democrat) and 28 Representatives (20 Republicans and eight Democrats) are not running for re-election. In 2018, 55 total members of Congress18 Democrats and 37 Republicansdid not seek re-election.

On November 3, 2020, 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats are up for election. Of those Senate seats, 33 are regularly-scheduled elections, while the other two are special elections in Arizona and Georgia. Twelve are Democratic-held seats and 23 are Republican-held seats. In the House, where all the seats are up for election, Democrats currently hold a 233-seat majority.

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Number of Democrats and Republicans filed for 2020 US House races remains even for the third straight week; no new 2020 retirements - Ballotpedia News

By Samuel StebbinsDecember 2, 2019 6:14 pm

With the exception of Supreme Court justices, who are appointed for life, job security can be a major challenge in Washington D.C. particularly for members of the House of Representatives. Unlike their congressional counterparts in the Senate, who face reelection every six years, members of the House are elected every two years.

Without term limits, members of the House can, in theory, serve for decades but this does not happen often. The majority of the more than 430 members of the House of Representatives have served for no more than six years fewer years than a single term of a U.S. Senator.

Using data from congress.gov 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the tenure of all current members of the House of Representatives to identify the longest-serving Republicans in the House. Lawmakers are ranked on cumulative service, even if their terms were not consecutive or their district changed. Though the number of Democrats who have held office since the 1980s and 1990s is more than double the number of Republican lawmakers with similar tenure, the two longest serving House members are Republican.

Remaining popular enough to win elections is critical for elected officials in the legislative branch. The Republican House members on this list have proved more than capable of that, winning anywhere from five elections to more than 20 each. Though they face reelection less frequently, U.S. senators need to remain popular as well. Here is a look at Americas most and least popular senators.

A representatives reason for leaving office is by no means limited to losing an election. House members will often run for another elected office or simply retire. Others choose to leave public service for more lucrative opportunities in the private sector. Here is a look at 76 richest members of congress.

Click here to see the longest-serving Republicans in the HouseClick here to see the longest-serving Democrats in the House

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Longest-Serving Republicans in the House - 24/7 Wall St.

Do you remember when the Republican Party was led by staunchly anti-communist Cold Warriors such as Ronald Reagan, issuing dark warnings that the Soviet Union was an Evil Empire posing an existential threat to Americas freedoms and way of life? Remember Reagans exhortations to Russian President Gorbachev to Tear Down that Wall! Remember when it was the party of fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and conservative democratic principles?

That Republican Party no longer exists. The new Republican Party is now a pro-Russian party that, under the unchallenged leadership of leading Russia apologist Donald J. Trump, continues to question the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that it was Russia that launched the hugely successful cyberattack and disinformation campaign on our American democracy during the 2016 election.

In her dramatic testimony, Fiona Hill, the distinguished former National Security Council official, warned that the fictional narrative and conspiracy theory being supported by Republican members of Congress that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that was responsible for interfering in the 2016 presidential election was consistent with Russian disinformation talking points and was distracting from the very real threat that Russia poses to Americas democracy.

As long as Trump is in the White House, it is a virtual certainty that Republican members of Congress will continue to live in fear of expressing concern over the White Houses extortion campaign of the Ukraine administration. Republicans continue to take the short-term, myopic view that their own political survival is more important than a principled vote in support of the simple premise that a sitting president is prohibited from seeking foreign assistance for his re-election campaign while holding up critical military aide to an important ally.

Russias successful attempt to co-opt the Republican Party closely parallels its broad campaign to compromise right-wing populist politicians in Europe with offers of cooperation, loans, propaganda and disinformation campaigns. Anti-European Union candidates and parties in Austria, Italy, Holland, France and Germany have received either overt or clandestine backing from Russia over the past several years, and a recent suppressed report on the Brexit vote found that it is highly likely that Russian money played a significant role in the successful pro-Brexit campaign to withdraw the U.K. from the European Union.

These far-right European parties have embraced Putin as the exemplar of the patriotic, nationalistic strongman who is dedicated to national traditions and realpolitik, rather than the internationalism and democratic institutions that have long characterized Western liberalism. These right wing, nationalist parties tend to be virulently anti-immigration, xenophobic, racist, and deeply suspicious of genuine democratic institutions, an independent judiciary or a free press that may challenge the unbridled exercise of executive power. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and his Fidesz Party are prime examples of how democratic institutions can be gradually eroded over a period of years, to the point where the country can be considered as more an illiberal semi-authoritarian state than a truly democratic one. Orban took over as Prime Minister in 2010, and in only nine years was able to transform the country into an authoritarian regime more aligned with Russia than its other partners in the European Union.

Only time will tell whether America will further drift right toward anti-democratic authoritarianism. Indeed, the more likely scenario is that America will do what France did when faced with a choice between a Kremlin-loving right wing candidate like Marine Le Pen and her National Front Party, or the strongly pro-democratic and centrist candidacy of now-President Emmanuel Macron. With its deep democratic traditions, France overwhelmingly rejected the pro-Russian and anti-European message of Le Pen. Similarly, I think it likely that the majority of American voters will ultimately reject the best effort of Trump and his co-opted Republican Party to paint Russia as a benign force that has been unfairly blamed for the 2016 election interference, and to portray Ukraine as a corrupt, unreliable ally.

If the Republican Party does not re-embrace its bedrock core principles, if it does not come to its senses and recognize that Russia is now (and always has been) a major adversary of the U.S. and the greatest threat to NATO and our European allies, then it runs the risk of not only seriously damaging Americas national security, but also of facing political disaster in the 2020 elections. It can no longer call itself the Party of Lincoln, or even the party of Eisenhower, Reagan or Bush.

Unless Republicans right their own ship, it is destined to become a permanent minority party that has drifted far from the mainstream of American democratic principles, or just a footnote in American history like the Whig Party.

Kenneth Foard McCallion is a former federal prosecutor and human rights attorney who has represented numerous Ukrainian and other European clients, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine. He is the author of Treason & Betrayal: The Rise and Fall of Individual-1.

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What has become of the Republican Party? | Column - Tampa Bay Times