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Donald Trump got a big boost Tuesday when Republican Sen. Mitt Romney announced his support for considering the president’s supreme court candidate.
The move appeared to nearly end Democrats’ hopes of blocking liberal justice successor Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week at age 87. Two Republican senators have voiced opposition to confirming a candidate before the November elections, but Democrats need two more.
Romney, a former presidential candidate who was the only Republican who voted to remove Trump from office at his impeachment, was seen as a swing vote. He said in a statement: “The constitution gives the president the power to nominate and the Senate the authority to provide advice and consent on the nominees to the supreme court.
Accordingly, I intend to follow the constitution and precedent when considering the president’s candidate. If the nominee makes it to the Senate floor, I intend to vote based on their qualifications. “
Romney’s announcement drew immediate criticism. Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary during the Bill Clinton administration, tweeted: “Guess this Senator Romney. You voted to remove the president [from] charge for crimes against the state, but now he believes that the president himself should have the right to nominate a supreme court judge. A president who thought he was unfit to continue serving. Explain? “
The decision appeared to give Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, the votes he needs to confirm Trump’s nominee, though he still faces a challenging schedule just six weeks before the election.
McConnell and allies like Lindsey Graham have ignored allegations of hypocrisy after they blocked Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s nomination in 2016, also an election year.
Graham told Fox News: “We have the votes to confirm the replacement of Judge Ginsburg before the election. We will advance in committee. We will report the committee’s nomination to the United States Senate so that we can vote before the election. “
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden made a passionate plea on Sunday to the “conscience” of Republican senators to respect democratic norms. It seems to have been in vain. Only Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have said the next president should decide the vacancy. Collins faces a tough challenge in the November election, when control of the Senate is also at stake.
But with Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, the Collins-Murkowski rebellion alone will not be enough to stop the process. Democrats have few, if any, options.
Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, told reporters: “I’ve been around for a few years. You can slow things down but you can’t stop them. “
Trump has said he intends to nominate a woman, his third overall court appointment. He tweeted Tuesday: “I will announce my Supreme Court candidate Saturday, at the White House! Exact time TBA “.
The president has named two women he named federal appeals court judges as possible nominees: Amy Coney Barrett of the Chicago-based US 7th Circuit and Barbara Lagoa of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit.
Trump met with Barrett at the White House on Monday and has said he could meet Lagoa in Florida later this week. Strategists view judicial appointments as a crucial tool for the president to shore up the support of evangelicals and other conservatives concerned by his vulgar insults and political competition.
The all-out political battle could also help you divert attention from the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed 200,000 lives.
If Trump’s election is upheld, the court would have a 6-3 conservative majority with far-reaching implications for abortion, health care, gun rights, voting access, presidential powers, and other spheres of life. U.S.
Before dying, Ginsburg expressed the wish that his successor would be chosen by the next president. A Reuters / Ipsos poll found that the majority of Americans, including many Republicans, want the winner of the election to make the nomination.
Democrats accuse Republicans of defying both the popular will and political norms, especially those they preached in 2016, undermining the integrity of the Senate.
Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, told the Senate floor: “This is how our vaunted traditions of bipartisanship and compromise end – on life support before now. That’s how. On the one hand, in this case the Republican majority under the leadership of leader McConnell, deciding that the rules do not apply to them, even their own rules. That, when the time comes, is brute political force, until the end. “
Schumer added: “If my friends on the Republican side want that kind of Senate, they can follow Leader McConnell down the very dangerous path he has charted.”
Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights group Color of Change, said: “Those who support them when they break this rule also have to struggle with all the ways that Republicans don’t care about the rules. They speak of law and order. They talk about the rule of law. But time and time again, as long as it is about generating power for them, and as long as it is trying to set different rules set for them, their word means nothing. “
He added: “This is what we’ve seen from the Trump administration from the beginning. So I don’t know how useful it is for us to call them hypocrites or scream about how amazing it is or throw their dates in their faces, because for the last four years that’s what we’ve been doing.“
Ten former federal judges, including former FBI Director William Webster, have pleaded with Senate leaders not to consider a candidate until after inauguration day. The legitimacy of the court “is not something that can be recovered if lost,” they wrote.
“It is up to you to demonstrate the same restraint that is required of our judiciary.”
The public duel for Ginsburg will take place in front of the court on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday she will become the first woman to stay in the state at the United States Capitol.
