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<p>Republicans are starting to talk openly about refusing to fill Antonin Scalia&#8217;s Supreme Court seat not only through the end of President Obama&#8217;s term but indefinitely. Ted Cruz, Charles Grassley and John McCain have all sent such signals, as have some other prominent conservatives.</p> 
<p>It&#8217;s worth taking this talk seriously.</p> 
<p>Too many top Republicans have made clear in recent years that they care more about winning than about adhering to political norms or doing what&#8217;s best for the country. You can see this attitude in the willingness to shut down the government, the threats to default on the national debt and the <a type="internal">stated desire</a> to make Obama a failed president.</p> 
<p>The political scientists Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein call it &#8220; <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/yes-polarization-is-asymmetric-and-conservatives-are-worse/373044/" type="external">asymmetric polarization</a>&#8221;: the two political parties have come to behave quite differently.</p> 
<p>Refusing to seat a ninth justice, simply for ideological reasons, would be a clear and worrisome break with democratic tradition. It would send the message that Republicans believe a president should be able to exercise the Constitutional power to name justices only if that president were Republican. It would represent a new level of partisan cynicism.</p> 
<p>I hope that the wiser heads within the Republican Party prevail after the election. But Democrats should be prepared for the alternative.</p> 
<p>The alternative would mean that Senate control &#8212; which remains <a href="http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-congress-senate" type="external">up in the air</a>, given the tightness of recent polls &#8212; will be crucial. If Republicans hold the Senate, a President Hillary Clinton would be at their mercy with any nominee.</p> 
<p>If Democrats take the Senate, they would have an obvious fallback plan: eliminating the 60-vote threshold of the filibuster &#8212; as a Senate majority can always do &#8212; and confirming a justice with 51 votes. As long as Republicans keep talking about permanent obstructionism, Democrats should not hesitate to use that option.</p> 
<p>What I&#8217;m reading: Jeff Shesol, at The New Yorker, has <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/will-republicans-fight-to-shrink-the-supreme-court" type="external">an excellent breakdown</a> of the growing signs of the Republicans&#8217; Supreme Court obstructionism.</p>
The G.O.P.’s Radical Supreme Court Talk