the future of the supreme court hangs in next week<u+2019>s election balance, and tim kaine has usefully underscored the political stakes of a republican senate majority. <u+201c>i am a u.s. senator. i have a prediction<u+2014>this is not a guarantee<u+2014>and i<u+2019>m not revealing inside intel,<u+201d> mr. kaine, the virginia democrat who is hillary clinton <u+2019>s running mate, told the huffington post last week. <u+201c>i was in the senate when the republicans<u+2019> stonewalling around appointments caused the senate democratic majority to switch the vote threshold on appointments from 60 to 51. and we did it on everything but a supreme court justice. <u+201c>if these guys think they<u+2019>re going to stonewall the filling of that vacancy or other vacancies, then a democratic senate majority will say, <u+2018>we<u+2019>re not going to let you thwart the law.<u+2019> and so we will change the senate rules to uphold the law that the court will be nine members.<u+201d> translation: democrats will again change senate rules on a purely partisan vote to kill the filibuster when it suits their political purposes. they did it to pack the d.c. circuit court of appeals in 2013, and they<u+2019>ll do it to get a fifth, sixth or seventh liberal onto the supreme court. this intention has been widely suspected, but it<u+2019>s instructive to see it in the raw. this means that if republicans want to have any chance of blocking mrs. clinton<u+2019>s nominees they<u+2019>ll need to retain at least 51 senate seats, which should get voters<u+2019> attention.
kaine<u+2019>s filibuster threat - wsj
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