February 29, 2016 12:36 PM UTC

Politifact Busts Gardner on Supreme Court Fiction

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• by: Colorado Pols

The partnership between 7NEWS Denver and Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact made another big contribution to truth in politics Friday evening, demolishing a ridiculous claim from Sen. Cory Gardner on the history of confirming Supreme Court justices by Presidents and Congresses not of the same party:

Some senators have been flunking their exams on Supreme Court nomination history.

During a discussion on the high court’s election-year vacancy on Morning Joe this week, Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado said, “It’s been since 1888 that a Senate of a different party than the president in the White House confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.”

We looked hard at Gardner’s claim and found he fumbled the facts.

Since 1895, there have been 14 times when a Senate controlled by a different party than the president’s party have confirmed his nominee.

The statement is so wrong it’s ludicrous–of course Supreme Court justices have been approved by opposing majority parties in Congress from the White House, including several current members of the court. The last time a Supreme Court justice was approved by the Senate of a different majority party than the President in a presidential election year was 1988, when the Democratic-controlled Senate approved lame-duck President Ronald Reagan’s nominee Anthony Kennedy on a 97-0 vote.

As Republicans have locked down over the past two weeks against any Supreme Court nominee in President Barack Obama’s final year in office, they have frequently invoked a contorted version of political history to justify what Democrats condemn as unprecedented obstruction. Anecdotes like a 25-year-old speech from Joe Biden that never impacted actual events are cited as justification for disregarding a central responsibility.

And then there’s Cory Gardner, who is simply full of shit.