It is likely unconstitutional; the President has the power to "nominate" under the Appointments Clause. Requiring the President to pick from a short list of candidates encroaches on that power by transferring part of it to Congress. There are some existing statutes that limit the President's power in this manner, but they're limited to fairly unique positions (the Comptroller-General, which is housed within the legislative branch, and certain local D.C. judges). This Court has generally taken a broad view of the President's power in this area, so I'd expect it to be invalidated.
I'm not so sure. It probably depends on how it was structured. The President would still have the ability to nominate whoever he or she wants. This seems like a way to streamline the process by having certain individuals basically automatically confirmed if they are nominated. There's nothing forcing the President to nominate any of those preselected individuals.
You want the Senate to confirm judges before they've had a hearing, or even been nominated? Good luck with that..
Getting rid of the stupid hearings would be great. They've never once added anything useful or informed anyone's decision.
Robert Bork and Brett Kavanaugh agree.
The Senate would've just outright rejected Bork in 1987 like they did anyway. That was a Democratic Senate and he had bipartisan opposition. They knew who he was. Ted Kennedy took to the floor in a matter of minutes after Bork was announced as Reagan's pick. Kavanaugh was confirmed anyway and it's widely believed that him being nominated was the prerequisite for Kennedy being willing to retire.
Could you share your sources for this? From what I read, Kennedy did try to manage to get Kavanaugh onto the shortlist before he retired. And it's true that Kavanaugh is his favorite clerk. But the nomination was not decided until the last day, as power player were suspicious about how solid he is, and wanted to replace him with someone like Barrett.
