Adam White explains that the Senate has no constitutional obligation to act on a president’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Many of the people saying that the Senate is abdicating its constitutional responsibility, acting in a grotesquely partisan manner, etc., are saying that it’s one thing for Republicans to vote down a nomination and another for them to refuse even to take one up. But the same basic arguments that are today being made for proceeding with a judicial nomination–you’ve got to respect the president, he won an election, the system needs cooperation to keep working–were traditionally also made for confirming a president’s judicial nominees. It was claimed that even senators who strongly disagreed with a president’s constitutional views should defer to them during confirmation votes. (The argument was made widely enough during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation debate that I felt it necessary to write a short essay criticizing it.) And, really, why should there be any difference between these two cases? If it’s alright for the Senate to turn down a nomination by voting against it, what could possibly be wrong with its turning it down in a more passive way (or a passive-aggressive way, if you like)?

The problem can’t be prejudgment: A lot of senators would pre-judge a nominee, Schumer-style, even if the Senate held hearings. The argument against the Senate Republicans has to be the traditional, flawed one: the argument that senators should have a presumption for confirmation.