BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media. I’m Bob Garfield. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings this week have been pretty ho-hum. In response to Democrats grilling him on his political views and past rulings, the judge has largely remained stoic and evasive. But when Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse probed Gorsuch on his views about money in politics, things did get a little testy.
[CLIP]:
SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Is it any cause of concern to you that your nomination is the focus of a $10 million political spending effort and we don't know who's behind it?
JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Senator, there's a lot about the confirmation process today that I regret - a lot.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Whitehouse went on to note that the same dark money group pushing pro-Gorsuch ads spent at least $7 million on ads against President Obama's ill-fated nominee, Merrick Garland.
SENATOR WHITEHOUSE: And, indeed, produce that result by spending that money. And then now we have $10 million going the other way. That’s a $17 million delta. And, for the life of me, I’m trying to figure out what they see in you that makes that $17 million delta worth their spending? Do you have any answer to that?
JUDGE GORSUCH: You’d have to ask them.
SENATOR WHITEHOUSE: I can’t because I don’t know who they are. It’s just a front group.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: The front group is the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative 501(c){4} organization that works to fill the courts with constitutional originalists, using ads that sound like this.
[CLIP/MUSIC UP & UNDER]]:
ANNOUNCER: A real outdoorsman, he rides horses and knows his way around a barn, comfortable in the mountains, an expert fisherman. Neil Gorsuch is a family man, a conservative from Colorado. Neil Gorsuch has been called a natural successor to Justice Scalia. On issues of the Constitution, no one is stronger.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network. Carrie, welcome to the show.
CARRIE SEVERINO: Great to be here.
BOB GARFIELD: So you're going to spend, before this is over with, like $10 million in advertising in support of the Gorsuch nomination. Who’s the audience?
CARRIE SEVERINO: The biggest part of our audience are these 10 senators in red states that are up for reelection in 2018 but in states that went for Trump in the last election. So I think those are the ones that are either going to choose between the partisan gridlock route or the vote for this clearly qualified and talented judge.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Okay, spin noted, but –
[SEVERINO LAUGHS]
- on the subject of partisan gridlock, the conventional wisdom is that, you know, that's really not a scenario that's likely to take place, that either he will be confirmed immediately or there will be an attempted filibuster, whereupon rules will change and Gorsuch will still be confirmed, so that it's kind of a foregone conclusion. If that’s the case, why - spend all that dough?
CARRIE SEVERINO: Well, I think that’s the reason we’re seeing that everyone acknowledges at this point Gorsuch is definitely going to be confirmed is because we’ve done the hard work of trying to make that case.
BOB GARFIELD: Now, I asked you why blow all this money if the nomination is a foregone conclusion. And, by the way, if I'm saying it is, it almost certainly isn’t ‘cause I’m never right about anything, ever. But the Democrats seem to see it the same way. They’ve spent, at least according to the Washington Post, less than $200,000 to fight the Gorsuch nomination. Is it because they consider it a lost cause? Is it because they view the political ecosystem differently? Is it because they can’t agree on a message? Do you know why you're running your ads virtually unopposed?
CARRIE SEVERINO: Well, they recognize that it was going to be too much of an uphill battle, but I do think there’s a lot of groups in the left that are incensed at the fact the Democrats haven't put more - put more money and more effort behind it. You know, there’s a lot of people on the leftmost edge of their base that are really wanting to put pressure on. Now, it might – that might not translate to dollars but they certainly seem to think they’ve got a lot of momentum. But I think at the end of the day also it has been hard for Democrats to agree on a strategy. You’ve had some people, like Senator Manchin in the high camp who say they’re not going to filibuster and they don’t think that’s right. Then you’ve had several other people who’ve kind of gone back and forth about what the proper standard should be. So I don't think the Democratic Party has a consistent strategy, yet.
BOB GARFIELD: Straightaway, I asked you why spend $10 million to back a certain winner and you said, well, you know, one of the reasons he’s a certain winner is because of the support that we have offered him from the moment of the announcement. Let me run a slightly more cynical scenario by you. Judicial Crisis Network, your organization, is funded by dark money from God- knows-what sources. [LAUGHS] We, literally, don't know. And you exist on earth to raise money and spend it. Is this a case of the money is there, you have to spend it, whether it's needed or not, to keep the beast alive, irrespective of the nomination that currently is at hand?
CARRIE SEVERINO: Well, that’s even more cynical than Senator Whitehouse during the hearings today. I’m impressed. No, I don't think that’s it at all. We certainly aren't in the business of wasting money. The fact of the matter is ever since Judge Bork’s nomination, really, and, in particular, it ramped up during the second Bush's presidency, we have seen the Democrats politicizing the judiciary and really weaponizing the nomination process to a new level. We all know the Bork confirmation hearings, obviously, the Justice Thomas's hearing. But in the 2000s, the Democrats started using the filibuster in this unprecedented way against scores of appellate nominees, in some cases filibustering multiple times. This had never been done in history. And we simply have to be able to respond. Not to respond to that level of partisanship would be to simply cede the field to the Democrats who are trying to use these games to reshape the judiciary. So we need to realize they’re playing hardball and make sure that we’re there to make the case.
BOB GARFIELD: You know, I think probably McConnell's decision not to give the Garland nomination even a hearing, that’s some hardball itself, is it not?
CARRIE SEVERINO: I think it was partly possible because of what the Democrats did, for example, to change the rules in 2013. If they hadn't done the filibuster rule change in 2013, we wouldn’t have had people like Senator Graham –
[BOTH SPEAK/OVERLAP]
BOB GARFIELD/WHINEY VOICE: You started it, no, you started it!
CARRIE SEVERINO: I'm not, I'm not saying that wouldn’t be Senator McConnell’s position, but we certainly would not have had the unified Republican support that you did. Under the circumstances, where you had a policy laid out by then Senator Biden, similar things said by Senator Schumer, we should not even move to hearings on a nominee, the president should not nominate someone. It’s inappropriate to bring that into the political process. When the Democrats have said they would do something, I think it’s understandable that the Republicans take them at their word and say, all right, this is the rules of the game, as the Democrats have said they would play it.
BOB GARFIELD: I got it and, as you mentioned before, the “borking” of Bork was the original sin. You described the Democrats’ response to the Gorsuch nomination as hysterical and the threat of a filibuster to be a new low. Those don't sound like credible talking points. Do you really feel them in your heart or is this just something that you, as a conservative thought leader, feel obliged to say?
CARRIE SEVERINO: You tell me. You don’t think the Democrats have been hysterical about this? Ask the people who are protesting on Chuck Schumer’s lawn [LAUGHS] saying he’s not doing enough to block everything that Donald Trump does. I think it’s absolutely true. And it’s simply a matter of historical fact that no Supreme Court nominee with clear majority support, as I think Gorsuch clearly has, has been blocked by a filibuster. Chuck Schumer would like to break that agreement of people saying, you know, we just don’t do this for Supreme Court nominees, so that’s how that would be a new low.
BOB GARFIELD: Carrie, thank you very much.
CARRIE SEVERINO: Have a great night.
BOB GARFIELD: Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network.
