Should the Senate refrain from voting on SCOTUS nominees on ideological grounds?

[Torie]

If the word of politicians were their bond, would you favor a deal where the Dems agree to not oppose Pub SCOTUS nominees on ideological grounds, if the Pubs in return agreed to do the same with Dem SCOTUS nominees? In other words, we go back to the "good old days" were nominees who were deemed competent and of good judicial temperament were as a matter of course confirmed?

In the current environment, where everything is all ideological all the time, and with the Dems concerned that the Pubs have a structural advantage in controlling the Senate, we now are seeing both here and elsewhere rather drastic Dem prescriptions about what to do about it, from court packing, to state creation and bifurcation, and so forth, none of which in my view are going to get very far (and in my view should not get anywhere at all). So the genie is out of the bottle. Assign blame where you will. But assuming that it could be done, in a more perfect world, would you favor sticking the genie back in the bottle? By doing that, it is the POTUS that has effective control, and when it comes to POTUS, the parties do have a pretty level playing field, so the Pub structural advantage goes away.

[Torie]

No, not exactly. It's been my belief that the Senate majority party has every right to demand a "moderate" (center-right / left) justice, but it shouldn't go beyond that (eg: unreasonable to demand a completely centrist justice, or justice from the opposite ideology of the president, however you want to measure that).

If in the majority, Democrats would be completely within the realm of reasonableness to vote down someone like Scalia or Thomas, for instance. And I wouldn't blame Republicans for voting down someone like Thurgood Marshall.

The Supreme Court has incredible power to sharply change the the rules and levels of power that govern this country. It seems downright absurd to me to not take into their account their views when deciding whether to confirm.

I don't think that is a stable system, even if the Senators tried to implement it in good faith (and getting the parties to agree what is a centrist mainstream judicial philosophy will be no easy task). And over time, if the Pubs controlled the Senate mostly, when the Pubs also held POTUS, there would be conservative nominees confirmed, and when there was a split, they would be moderates. Over time, the conservatives would tend to be a majority. If POTUS had the say, then the Dems would not have that deficit, and the system is much easier to follow and implement.