Graham Says Republicans Set for Barrett’s Swift Approval
Trump’s Court Pick Welcomed by GOP Senators Ahead of Hearing
(Bloomberg) -- Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said Republicans are primed for a quick confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and his committee will have her nomination to the Senate floor before Election Day.
Approval of President Donald Trump’s nomination is a foregone conclusion, Graham said. “We have decided,” and the Judiciary panel’s confirmation hearings are “for the benefit of the public,” he said.
“I’m in charge of the committee. I want to give her a full, challenging hearing,” Graham said Tuesday before meeting with Barrett. But if Democrats “start playing games, we’ll just move on.”
Escorted to the Capitol by Vice President Mike Pence and White House staff, Barrett made a round of meetings with key Republican senators on Monday, starting off with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and ending with Graham.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he won’t meet with Barrett, as have Senate Judiciary Committee members Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also said Tuesday that she won’t meet with Barrett and that Democrats should “treat this nomination like the illegitimate power grab it is.”
Other Democrats said they would talk with Barrett. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the party’s No. 2 leader in the Senate and a member of the panel, said he was open to extending that “courtesy” if Barrett requested it. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said he planned to as well.
“I’m going to be talking with her soon I hope,” Booker said.
Trump is nominating Barrett, a federal appellate court judge, to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The loss of liberal icon Ginsburg and the confirmation of the conservative Barrett, 48, could cement a rightward shift on the court for years to come.
McConnell and Graham have set a rapid timetable to vote on her confirmation in coming weeks, with four days of hearings starting Oct. 12. Graham said he would agree with a request from Democrats under Judiciary Committee rules to delay a committee vote by a week but that he’s set Oct. 22 to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
Since McConnell forced through a change in Senate filibuster rules in 2017, it only takes the support of 51 senators to confirm a Supreme Court justice, rather than 60.
The decision to forge ahead on the confirmation just weeks before the election has set off a bitter clash in the Senate. Democrats have accused McConnell and the GOP of hypocrisy, after they prevented Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee in 2016 to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, from even getting a hearing by claiming it was too close to that year’s election. Garland was named more than seven months before the November 2016 vote.
Democrats have acknowledged there is little they can do to keep Barrett off the court, though that won’t stop the minority party from making its case. One Senate Democratic aide said Tuesday that no Democrat on the Judiciary Committee plans to boycott the hearings -- instead wanting to use them to make a case against her and show the public that they are fighting back.
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