Apparently, cynicism is so embedded in Congress that it has created an alternate reality for some U.S. senators.

In Sen. Orrin Hatch’s opinion piece (“Commentary: Senate does its job by stalling Supreme Court confirmation process”), reprinted in this paper March 24, he asserts that by steadfastly refusing to do anything, the Senate is actually doing its job.

One could understand how the senator has come to believe this after years of institutional intransigence and the stated position of Republican leadership not to advance any initiative of the president.

Indeed, Sen. Mitch McConnell pronounced on the very day of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death that there would be no consideration of any nominee that the president might put forward.

Sen. Hatch now curiously asserts that the public’s protesting the Senate’s failure to act serves as reason to defer the confirmation process. This reasoning makes a mockery of our democratic tradition.

The senator states that these “disrupters” want a rubber stamp of the president’s nominee. This is not so.

What the people want is for the Senate to perform its constitutional function of advice and consent, hold a hearing, question the nominee and make a decision, up or down, as to whether the nominee is qualified to serve on our nation’s highest court.

Sen. Hatch contends that through inaction, the Senate is “preserving the dignity of the Supreme Court” and insulating it from “political gamesmanship.” He has it backward.

In putting forward a nominee for the Supreme Court (i.e., doing his job), the president is not seeking to thrust this issue into the presidential election or politicizing the process.

The president had no control over the timing of Justice Scalia’s passing. In failing to perform its constitutional function, the Senate is debasing its own institution and the Supreme Court and further eroding the confidence that the public has in its government.

William Sheils

Portland

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