On the Senate floor this afternoon, Dick Durbin said this:
DURBIN: "Thankfully, there are members in the Senate who are willing to rise above the partisan fray. I want to particularly commend Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah for their political courage." pic.twitter.com/1sHcRKAtxV
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 7, 2022
Dick Durbin doesn’t get to make this argument. Dick Durbin voted against Amy Coney Barrett, against Brett Kavanaugh, and against Neil Gorsuch. He voted against Samuel Alito. He even voted against John Roberts — becoming one of only 22 senators who did. “The partisan fray”? Dick Durbin is “the partisan fray.”
There are a few senators among the current crop — Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, for example — who are willing to vote for both Republican-nominated and Democrat-nominated Supreme Court nominees. Those people, if they so wish, can talk as Dick Durbin did today. Dick Durbin cannot.
There is nothing wrong with senators having strong views on judicial nominees. The two parties in this country disagree profoundly as to what we should expect from the Supreme Court, and their attitude toward those who staff it tends to follow suit. But one has to choose a course: either one must stick to one’s jurisprudential guns and vote accordingly, or one must adopt a more formal conception of “qualification” and consider only that in one’s deliberations. One cannot do both.
Since Dick Durbin arrived in the Senate in 1997, he has never voted for a Republican-appointed Supreme Court nominee, and he has never voted against a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court nominee. He does not get to make saccharine speeches about the importance of “political courage.” He does not get to criticize others for behaving as he does himself. He does not get to praise others for behavior he is wholly unprepared to engage in.
And if he tries? He should be laughed derisively out of the room.