This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on April 7, 2017 For those of us who revere Con­gress and, in my case, par­tic­u­larly the Sen­ate, hav­ing first worked there as an in­tern 44 years ago, these are sad times. Par­tis­an­ship is strangling what was long a func­tion­ing and ef­fect­ive in­sti­tu­tion, whose slow pace was in keep­ing with its claim to be the world’s greatest de­lib­er­at­ive body. Re­pub­lic­ans ac­ted shame­fully last year by re­fus­ing to act on Judge Mer­rick Gar­land, Pres­id­ent Obama’s choice to fill the va­cancy on the Su­preme Court left by the death of Justice Ant­on­in Scalia. Now, Demo­crats’ treat­ment of Judge Neil Gor­such, Pres­id­ent Trump’s nom­in­ee for that same Su­preme Court slot, is equally shame­ful. Both men are em­in­ently qual­i­fied and do not de­serve to be whip­ping boys for the ugly par­tis­an­ship that has poisoned Cap­it­ol Hill. The Re­pub­lic­an ar­gu­ment that Obama should not be al­lowed to nom­in­ate a Su­preme Court justice in the last year of a pres­id­en­tial term flies in the face of the his­tor­ic­al re­cord: Six justices have been nom­in­ated and con­firmed in pres­id­en­tial elec­tion

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