If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, he wins anyway

Here is another factor I do not believe some folks on the BB have thought about. It is not all one-sided, but ...

From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...amas-supreme-court-nomination-he-wins-anyway/

A divided court leaves lower court rulings in place. And the lower courts are blue. Nine of the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals have a majority of Democratic appointees. That means liberal rulings conservatives were hoping the Supreme Court would overturn remain law. So if Scalia had cast the deciding vote on a case before he died, but the court rehears it and divides 4 to 4, that would leave the lower court decision in place. That’s what would happen with a proposal to apportion Congress in an entirely new way that would heavily favor Republican districts, which was argued recently. The lower court (in this case a district court which went directly to the Supreme Court for technical reasons) tossed the plan out; conservatives had been hoping the justices would restore it.