November 30, 2018 Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg poses for
the official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
MANDEL NGAN / AFP
US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell vowed Friday
to hold a vote on a nominee that President Donald Trump names to
replace late Supreme Court Justice Ruther Bader Ginsburg, despite
the looming November election.
Her death sets up a mammoth battle for the seat she left behind,
with Trump potentially moving to nominate a new justice just weeks
before the November 3 vote, and challenger Joe Biden demanding the
election be held first, and the winner to pick Ginsburg’s
successor.
“President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of
the United States Senate,” McConnell, a chief ally of the president
in Congress, said in a statement shortly after Ginsburg’s death was
announced by the court.
The move would be in direct opposition to Ginsburg’s reported
dying wish that she not be replaced “until a new president is
installed” in January, 2021.
Such a step would be unprecedented in modern times — and is
certain to infuriate Democrats who have already called for
McConnell to wait to bring a nomination to the floor until at least
January, when control of the White House and Senate could
change.
“The voters should pick the president, and the president should
pick the justice for the Senate to consider,” Biden told reporters
after learning of Ginsburg’s death.
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“This was the position 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.”
Biden was referring to McConnell’s infamous refusal in February
2016 to bring Barack Obama’s nominee to replace late Justice
Anthony Scalia to the floor — fully 250 days before that year’s
election — because it was too close to the vote.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of
their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell said in a statement
released after Scalia’s death.
“Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a
new president.”
The powerful and shrewd Senate tactician addressed the issue in
his statement Friday, saying he refused to move on Obama’s
nomination of Merrick Garland because Republicans, already in the
majority in 2106, “pledged to check and balance the last days of a
lame-duck president’s second term.”
He added that since the 1880s, “no Senate has confirmed an
opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential
election year.”
Some Democrats have argued that if McConnell successfully holds
a vote on Trump’s new nominee, then Democrats — if they manage to
win control of the Senate — should move to expand the Supreme
Court.
AFP