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That confirmed McConnell’s previous insistence that he would do so in an election year, despite hampering President Barack Obama’s efforts to nominate a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, 10 months before that year’s presidential election. .
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer urged McConnell to await election results that are less than two months away. He cited McConnell’s words on Twitter in 2016, saying, “The American people must 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.”
Trump is seeking a second four-year term and has been behind Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in public opinion polls.
The long-term leadership of the highest court in the nation is at stake. The highly divided court currently had five conservative and four liberal magistrates.
If Trump chose a conservative judge to replace the liberal Ginsburg, as expected, the conservatives on the court would carry more weight with a 6-3 majority.
Democrats are trying to gain control of the White House and the Senate, which has the power to confirm the president’s candidates for the Supreme Court.
Since becoming Senate Majority Leader in 2015, McConnell has focused most of his attention and exercised his power to fill federal courts with conservative Trump-nominated judges.
A senior Republican aide to the Senate said of McConnell: “In no way does he miss a seat (of the Supreme Court).” The aide added that an important question will be whether McConnell, along with Trump, intends to fill the vacancy before the Nov.3 election or sometime before Jan.20, when the next president will be sworn in.
Several weeks or months may elapse between the president’s nomination of a Supreme Court justice and the Senate confirmation vote, as the candidate must go through a thorough vetting process by the Senate and often conducts visits to individual senators to generate support for the nomination.
Then, typically, lengthy confirmation hearings follow in the Senate Judiciary Committee culminating with a recommendation on whether the candidate should be confirmed and placed in court.
The last Supreme Court opening was held in October 2018 by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. His confirmation faced stiff opposition from Senate Democrats and included bitter hearings amid allegations, which he denied, of sexual misconduct decades earlier.
The Senate is currently controlled by 53 Republicans, while Democrats have 45 seats. Two independents line up with the Democrats in the majority of the vote.
Among the 53 Republicans are some moderates, including Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Collins is in a tough race for re-election this year in her home state of Maine, which has been a Democratic trend.
Ginsburg’s death could have an impact on Collins’ re-election effort and his stance on whether to hold the high court seat should await the outcome of the 2020 presidential race.
Reuters
