Are they just worried about Biden’s delivery? Because that might be legit, but hardly limited to his Supreme Court list:

https://twitter.com/francisbrennan/status/1271125440325959680?s=21

You can bet that Trump will have an updated list of contenders for the SCOTUS seats that will inevitably open up in the next four years. Senate Democrats, however, want Biden to keep it on the down-low:

Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat and a member of the panel, told The Hill that Biden should not emulate Trump, who broke political norms with his list.

“I sincerely hope he does not do that,” Durbin said. “We ought to go back to the regular order of things. If and when vacancies occur he can look for the very best person at that moment.”

“But understand what the Republicans were doing, they were making clear [to] the Federalist Society he was going to pre-clear every nominee for the Supreme Court, we should not be in the same business,” he added.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters during a conference call that he also did not think Biden should release a list.

“I have a lot of faith in Joe Biden. … I’ve talked to him a little bit about this and I think he understands the gravity of the issue,” Schumer said.

Just as a reminder, the previous version of “the regular order of things” was for Schumer and Durbin to play partisan hardball with every Republican judicial appointment. That started in part more than thirty years ago with Robert Bork and then Clarence Thomas, but Schumer, Durbin, and Harry Reid turned up the dials to 11 starting with George W. Bush’s picks. They brought the process to a standstill in 2005, prompting the Gang of Fifteen compromise, but then blew up the process altogether when Reid pulled his “nuclear option” stunt. That allowed Barack Obama to pack the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, but then opened the door for simple majorities for Trump to confirm all of his appointments, too.

If Durbin and Schumer are clinging to “regular order” as an argument, you can be certain something else is in play. That “something else” might well be an understanding of just how much the Supreme Court issue favors Republicans in presidential elections. Democrats attacked Trump’s list in 2016 and tried to paint the Federalist Society as some sort of secretive fringe group, but all they succeeded in doing was emphasizing that the election controlled the open seat left by the death of Antonin Scalia. That united the Right (well, mostly anyway) around Trump, and that issue might have been what allowed Trump to eke through to the White House.

Senate Democrats have more than just Biden’s election to worry about, too. The more that Biden focuses on the Supreme Court, the more difficult it will make their attempt to retake the upper chamber, too. The recent social unrest has already put their historic numeric advantage in this election at some risk, as people react to the violence and extreme rhetoric from the Left. If that gets freighted with radical picks for the Supreme Court on the table, their ability to win red-state Senate seats will be put at risk.

Specific names adds another layer of risk, too. In Trump’s case, he needed to float a list of serious jurists and thinkers in order to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate — in effect appealing to the center of the GOP. Biden would have to produce a list that does the opposite — one that convinces the extremes that he shares their perspective. That would lead to names on a list that the Trump campaign and the RNC would have a field day tearing apart in public, and emphasizing just how radical a Biden administration would actually be in this environment.

From here on out, Trump should make a point of his transparency on this issue and Biden’s opacity. Expect some ads shortly on this issue, and if Biden does issue a list, expect a whole lotta ads on it.