That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which begins:
In a prominent speech to the liberal American Constitution Society on July 27, 2007, Senator Charles Schumer of New York made clear his intention to prevent the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice if a vacancy arose during the remaining year-and-a-half of George W. Bush’s second term.
Schumer’s remarks, made more than 15 months before the 2008 presidential election, echoed the threat that Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had delivered 15 years earlier to Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, if a vacancy arose during the presidential-election year of 1992. And they foreshadowed the decision that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell would make upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia during the presidential-election year of 2016.