McConnell Vows Quick Vote on Trump Pick to Fill Ginsburg Seat
The U.S. Senate Majority Leader said he would schedule a vote to confirm Trump’s nominee to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would schedule a vote to confirm Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death Friday, giving the president an opportunity to cement a rightward tilt of the Supreme Court for a generation.
With the election less than two months away, McConnell said the Senate would act to fill the vacancy, even though he spent most of 2016 denying a confirmation hearing to President Barack Obama’s pick to fill a vacancy on the high court.
Americans gave Republicans a Senate majority “because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary,” McConnell said in a statement shortly after Ginsburg’s death was announced. “Once again, we will keep our promise. President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
Republican senators will be under tremendous pressure in a tight election year from anti-abortion groups and evangelicals to take what could be their last chance to overturn Roe v. Wade.
As evidence, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement that, “The pro-life grassroots have full confidence that President Trump, Leader McConnell, Chairman Graham, and every pro-life senator will move swiftly to fill this vacancy.”
But earlier Friday, before the announcement of Ginsburg’s death, GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski told Alaska Public Radio that if there were a vacancy on the court this year she wouldn’t vote to confirm a nominee before the election.
“I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. We are 50 some days away from an election,” she said.
With 53 Republicans, McConnell can afford to lose three senators and still confirm a pick with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote.
They can do so because Senate Republicans in April 2017 ignited the “nuclear option” to change Senate rules to allow Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and future high-court nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority vote, eliminating a 60-vote hurdle.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, facing allegations of sexual assault from his teen years, was confirmed with 50 votes in 2018.
On Friday night, Democrats quickly demanded that any move to replace Ginsburg be left for the next president.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a tweet that his office said was an exact echo of a statement by McConnell in 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Days before she died, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter, NPR reported, saying, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
Trump learned of Ginsburg’s death only after concluding a nearly two-hour campaign rally in Minnesota, where he told supporters they should re-elect him in part because of the Supreme Court.
“She just died?” Trump said to reporters after an aide appeared to tell him the news. “She led an amazing life. She was an amazing woman.”
Ginsburg’s death was announced by the Supreme Court just before 7:30 p.m. in Washington, after Trump had begun speaking at the rally. He didn’t respond to a question about filling the vacancy before departing Minnesota.
New List
Trump released a new list of potential appointees earlier this month -- revisiting a tactic he used in 2016 to galvanize support among conservatives and evangelicals. “Apart from matters of war and peace, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision an American president can make,” Trump told reporters on Sept. 9.
McConnell’s move to block Obama from having a hearing on his nominee in 2016 -- Merrick Garland -- set the stage for Trump to install Gorsuch instead.
Replacing Ginsburg with a conservative who could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act among other key issues would substantially increase the pressure on Democrats to consider neutering the Senate’s filibuster rule and expanding the size of the Supreme Court in turn.
McConnell has already warned that some Democrats are eyeing ending the need for 60 votes to overcome a filibuster should they take over the Senate, potentially setting the stage for packing the court.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told reporters Friday that the next president should pick Ginsburg’s successor.
‘Court Packing’
“There is no doubt -- let me be clear -- that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice,” Biden said at the New Castle County airport in Delaware upon returning from a campaign stop in Minnesota. “This was the position that the Republican Senate took in 2016 when there were almost 10 months to go before the election. That’s the position the United States Senate must take today and the election’s only 46 days off.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, issued a statement that was silent on the question of whether Ginsburg should be replaced before Election Day. He called her “a trailblazer who possessed tremendous passion for her causes.”
“While I had many differences with her on legal philosophy, I appreciate her service to our nation,” said Graham, who is up for re-election this fall in an increasingly tight race.
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