JONATHAN TURLEY: Biden's veto of Judges Act makes him a craven partisan, not a Framer
In an age of advocacy journalism, April Ryan has long been a standout. Ryan routinely engaged in diatribes in White House press conferences during the Trump Administration and has openly opposed all things Republican or conservative. Now, the MSNBC contributor and Grio White House correspondent has declared that President Joe Biden was a "standard-bearer for what the Founding Fathers put in place." The reason? His much-criticized and partisan veto of The Judges Act. While even stalwart Biden allies like Delaware Sen. Chris Coons criticized the President for vetoing the badly needed, bipartisan measure to add new judges, Ryan declared it the work of a modern George Washington.
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When the MSNBC host noted that The Judges Act "had bipartisan support" and was needed to relieve the overloaded courts, Ryan responded by saying that an obstructionist partisan move is precisely what the Framers would have wanted:
"It’s simple. This President Joe Biden, didn’t want to give President-elect Donald Trump a chance to add more conservatism into our courts, bottom line. I mean, you have so many people talking about how everything is weighed down right now. The White House on January 20 at noon will be Republican, the House, the Senate, what? Republican and the Supreme Court leans Republican. So this president wanted to ensure checks and balances.
…He is the standard bearer for what the Founding Fathers put in place. He wants to make sure everything goes well. And think about this, even though it wasn’t a federal judgeship, think about what happened with Merrick Garland. Think about the fact that Merrick Garland never got a chance to even have interviews with some senators because they rebuffed, they did not want to have a Democrat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In some ways, this is that as well. This is trying to hold the line, to make sure once again that fairness and equal play and checks and balances are in place."
Ryan mixes rationales of avoiding adding conservative judges to retaliation for prior votes as a noble cause that harkens back to the founding.
Of course, as discussed in my book "The Indispensable Right," some like John Adams used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest their political opponents, but few point to that as the gold standard for the Founders. Ironically, I have previously drawn comparisons between Biden and Adams.
Other Founders like Washington did not even support the creation of political parties, let alone endorse raw partisan moves by presidents. Indeed, Biden became the very thing that Washington wanted to avoid in saying that political partisanship:
"… may now and then answer popular ends…by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government…"
The move by Biden is a disgrace. Our courts are overwhelmed by dockets that leave parties without any resolution for years. In 2004, the number of cases in district court pending for more than three years was 18,280. This year, there are 81,617.
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If justice delayed is justice denied, our court system is becoming a tar pit of injustice, with litigants left without verdicts or relief for years.
Every responsible and independent group in the area supported this bill as essential to supporting and maintaining our legal system. The White House did not oppose the bill until Democrats lost the election. (Some Republicans also withheld their support until after the election).
Before the election, both Democrats and Republicans supported the bill in an all-too-rare moment of bipartisanship. Biden then vetoed it because he did not want a Republican to appoint new judges (even though the new judgeships would be added over a ten-year period).
In vetoing the act, Biden once again shredded any claim to being a president who could put the public interest ahead of petty political interests. It ends his presidency on a cynical, obstructionist note.
Nevertheless, Ryan and others on the far left are applauding the act as just what they want to see in a president.
It is one thing to discard any sense of integrity or responsibility, but do us a favor: leave the Founders out of it.