美国国家公共电台 NPR Senate Democrats In Political Quagmire Over Supreme Court Nomination

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Here in Washington, the conventional wisdom is that Supreme¹ Court nominee² Neil Gorsuch will be easily confirmed. But if 2016 proved anything, it's that conventional wisdom is not always accurate. So Senate Democrats³ find themselves in a tough spot - how hard do they fight what many see as a foregone conclusion? NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE⁵: Ron Klain has been a key Democratic player in four Supreme Court confirmations⁶ - two as a top staffer for then Senator Joseph Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee when it oversaw⁷ two Republican nominations⁸ and two as a top White House aide promoting President Clinton's Supreme Court nominees¹⁰. He expects that most Democrats will end up voting against Gorsuch, but the strategic question is whether the Democrats will try to block the nomination⁹ with a filibuster¹¹, which takes 60 votes to break.

RON KLAIN: The reality is there's going to be a filibuster. It takes only one senator to start a filibuster, only a handful to sustain it. And I think there are more than that number who will launch a filibuster. And then we'll see where the votes are. So I think this is round one of a 15-round fight, and we'll see what round 15 looks like.

TOTENBERG: But Professor Richard Hasen observes that if Republicans decide to exercise what's called the nuclear option and get rid of the filibuster altogether for Supreme Court nominees, that could cost the Democrats dearly.

RICHARD HASEN: What they lose is this is their one chance to make this into a big issue to get attention. It might be better saving it for a time if, during the Trump¹² administration, we have either Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer or Justice Kennedy, the three oldest justices, one of them leaving the court. If that happens, that would really change the balance of power on the court.

TOTENBERG: Democrat⁴ Klain acknowledges that the calculus¹³ is complicated.

KLAIN: But the level of toxicity¹⁴ and anger among rank-and-file Democrats is at an all-time high. And people have been ahead of the senators at every step along the way here in the past couple weeks. And we've seen for Cabinet nominees - some who seemed like they were going to be, you know, easy to get confirmed, have large numbers of Democratic votes - we've seen that vote tally¹⁵ peel back every day.

TOTENBERG: Hasen, who closely follows social media, agrees the danger for Democrats is real.

HASEN: If Senator Schumer and the other Democrats roll over, what is potentially likely to happen is that there will be some Democrats on the left who will try to primary these senators who will try to act like a tea party on the left and try to enforce some ideological¹⁶ discipline on senators who are not willing to take a broader stand.

TOTENBERG: And that could have dire¹⁷ consequences for Democratic numbers in the Senate in the election two years from now. In 2018, Republican incumbents¹⁸ are defending only eight Senate seats while Democrats are defending 23 seats, 10 of them in states carried in the 2016 election by Donald Trump. Again, Professor Hasen.

HASEN: And so this is going to put them in a very difficult spot. It could be, by the time we get to the 2018 elections, the Democrats could lose more seats and will have even less power in the Senate than they have now. He could argue that means now's the time to take a stand while you still have some powder left to use.

TOTENBERG: Neal Katyal, who served as the government's chief advocate in the Supreme Court during the Obama administration, says he understands Democratic rage over the GOP's unprecedented¹⁹ refusal for almost a year to even consider Obama's nominee for this very Supreme Court seat.

NEAL KATYAL: But in this world we are in, what I care most about is a judge who's going to be independent from the executive and call it like he sees it, and that's how I see Judge Gorsuch.

TOTENBERG: Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF BAYONNE'S "OMAR")

1 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

2 nominee   

n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者

参考例句：

• His nominee for vice president was elected only after a second ballot.他提名的副总统在两轮投票后才当选。
• Mr.Francisco is standing as the official nominee for the post of District Secretary.弗朗西斯科先生是行政书记职位的正式提名人。

3 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 confirmations   

证实( confirmation的名词复数 )； 证据； 确认； （基督教中的）坚信礼

参考例句：

• Never use transitory dialogs as error messages or confirmations. 绝不要用临时对话框作为错误信息框或确认信息框。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Dismissing confirmations thus becomes as routine as issuing them. 因此关闭确认对话框和发起确认对话框一样成为例行公事。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

7 oversaw   

v.监督，监视( oversee的过去式 )

参考例句：

• He will go down as the president who oversaw two historic transitions. 他将作为见证了巴西两次历史性转变的总统，安然引退。 来自互联网
• Dixon oversaw the project as creative director of Design Research Studio. 狄克逊监督项目的创意总监设计研究工作室。 来自互联网

8 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

9 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

10 nominees   

n.被提名者，被任命者( nominee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She's one of the nominees. 她是被提名者之一。 来自超越目标英语 第2册
• A startling number of his nominees for senior positions have imploded. 他所提名的高级官员被否决的数目令人震惊。 来自互联网

11 filibuster   

n.妨碍议事，阻挠；v.阻挠

参考例句：

• A senator dragged the subject in as a filibuster.一个参议员硬把这个题目拉扯进来，作为一种阻碍议事的手法。
• The democrats organized a filibuster in the senate.民主党党员在参议院上组织了阻挠议事。

12 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

13 calculus   

n.微积分；结石

参考例句：

• This is a problem where calculus won't help at all.对于这一题，微积分一点也用不上。
• After studying differential calculus you will be able to solve these mathematical problems.学了微积分之后，你们就能够解这些数学题了。

14 toxicity   

n.毒性，毒力

参考例句：

• The hoarse grunt or squeal is characteristic of toxicity.嘶哑的哼声和叫声是中毒的特征。
• Dieldrin is related to aldrin,and its toxicity to earthworms is similar.狄氏剂与艾氏剂有关，对蚯蚓的毒性是相似的。

15 tally   

n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致

参考例句：

• Don't forget to keep a careful tally of what you spend.别忘了仔细记下你的开支账目。
• The facts mentioned in the report tally to every detail.报告中所提到的事实都丝毫不差。

16 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

17 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

18 incumbents   

教区牧师( incumbent的名词复数 )； 教会中的任职者

参考例句：

• In general, incumbents have a 94 percent chance of being reelected. 通常现任官员有94%的几率会再次当选。
• This arangement yields a wonderful gain to incumbents. 这种安排为在职人员提供了意外的得益。

19 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。