While the Iowa Caucus debacle played out as a national embarrassment to the Democrat Party, the Nevada caucus also had problems according to Mayor Pete Buttitieg’s campaign:

In the letter [from Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign], a copy of which was obtained by The Nevada Independent, the campaign says that the process of integrating early votes on Caucus Day was “plagued with errors and inconsistencies” and that the campaign had received more than 200 incident reports from precincts around the state, including “a few dozen” relating to how the early vote data was folded in. 

Those issues, according to the campaign, include early vote data not being delivered or delivered after the caucus began, early votes not being used to calculate viability or the strength of each preference group, early votes being allocated to the wrong candidate and, in at least one case, early vote data from the wrong precinct being used.

Many experts have concluded last night’s CNN Democratic Presidential debate was won by Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Moreover many “conservatives” liked Mayor Pete.  However, on the issue that RNLA has been tracking- the candidate’s positions on judicial nominees and court packing- Mayor Pete was again a trainwreck last night. His position last night:

Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. 

There is a new, troubling trend among 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates this cycle: advocating and promoting a “litmus test,” or judicial philosophy benchmark, for judicial and Supreme Court candidates if he or she happens to be elected President of the United States.

Such a trend goes against the history of judicial nominations and threatens the principle of judicial independence. Some even call the implementation of a judicial litmus test as breaking the “political taboo.”

This is another installment of an ongoing series of posts summarizing 2020 Democratic presidential candidates' views on judges and the courts.  All posts in this series can be viewed here.

On Brett Kavanaugh: On September 27^th, 2018, ahead of the impending Senate vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, Mayor Buttigieg stated on his Twitter account, “Today is a grim and dramatic living enactment of the relationship between a Congressional GOP obsessed by tactics and power, and the anguished human beings they govern.” [1]

On September 28^th, 2018, following a statement by then-Senator Joe Donnelly that he would not be voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, Mayor Buttigieg Tweeted in support of Donnelly’s decision, “Indiana’s @SenDonnelly has made a very politically difficult decision. He is on the ballot this year. Will he be rewarded, or punished, for his principled stand? The choice is yours. Vote.”[2]

On Neil Gorsuch: In a January 31^st, 2017 posting on Twitter, Mayor Buttigieg stated, “Let's be sure the nomination of Judge Gorsuch is handled with the same fairness that Senate Republicans showed Judge [Merrick] Garland.”[3]

His Opposition to Trump’s Nominees: In a July 9^th 2018 posting on Twitter following the announcement of Brett Kavanaugh as nominee to the Supreme Court, Mayor Buttigieg stated, “This is what we’ve come to: An unpopular president, under investigation, bids an even more unpopular GOP Senate to confirm to the highest court a judge who has argued that presidents should be immune to criminal investigation.”[4]