A reader writes:
You forgot one boring, but vital, detail about Obama’s relentless advance: The courts. Yes, the president has seated two Supreme Court Justices (on par with Bush’s three and Clinton’s two), and he may get one or two more shots at it, but the real action is in the appellate courts. For 50 years, Democrats reigned supreme at the appellate level. This was a center of power that wasn’t dismantled until Ronald Reagan, who managed to flip the majority of the courts by around 1986. Because George H. W. Bush amounted to a third Republican term, the GOP was able to consolidate that majority so decisively that Clinton was barely able to make a dent in it before George W. Bush could continue the process. Now, however, 9 out of 13 appellate courts have majority Democratic appointees.
(No, that doesn’t include the semi-retired “senior bench,” but they take a much a lighter course load, and don’t really factor into a long, or even medium-term political calculus.) “But if you see [Hillary Clinton] as being to Barack Obama what George H.W. Bush was to Reagan,” as you said, four years could also be enough to push the courts to the left for the indefinite future. FDR’s power play gave him 50 years of court dominance. Reagan, the only president to successfully flip the court since WWII, maintained his influence well beyond his death – 30 years. A president Clinton will have all those same advantages, plus a very gray Supreme Court (FOUR octogenarians in her first term). Think about what that means for all those Voting Rights Act cases winding their way up, for gerrymandering (hence, the makeup of the House), for a whole host of immigration issues (as they relate to the electorate). Those are all issues with profound political consequences (the merits of each issue aside).
The courts are a full third of our political system, and Obama has been marching them in his direction very quietly, and more successfully than any president in a generation.
The Dish 