THIS IS THE KIND OF LEGAL REASONING THAT DESTROYS NATIONS: Can a Vice-President Be Confirmed by a Majority Vote of Both Houses Put Together? “Steve Lubet (Faculty Lounge) suggests the answer may be yes, so that (say) an unbroken 50-50 tie in the Senate might be combined with a 221-213 vote in the House might yield a confirmation, since the result will be a 271-263 total. Indeed, under this approach a 40-60 defeat in the Senate combined with a 230-205 win in the House would yield a confirmation as well.”

Nothing illustrates the out-of-touch partisan alignment of academia like this sort of thing. And as Eugene Volokh notes, Dems might not like the other implications of this approach, but they seldom think too far ahead for this stuff.

To be fair, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking about this stuff. But actually trying to proceed along these lines would be explosive and irresponsible. Any trial balloons need to be shot down.