Mitch McConnell Said The Senate Will Vote On Trump’s Replacement For Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 McConnell vowed to vote on Trump’s pick to exchange Ginsburg, despite blocking a vote on Obama’s nominee before the 2016 election.

WASHINGTON — Senate legislator Mitch McConnell declared Friday he will support President Donald Trump in attempting to fill the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat this fall, despite the approaching presidential election.

“Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to figure with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the Federal Judiciary . once more , we'll keep our promise,” he said during a handout . “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the ground of the us Senate.”

McConnell famously refused to permit former president Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to proceed in 2016. At the time, McConnell argued it had been an election year and voters should decide who filled subsequent Supreme Court seat; Garland was nominated in March of that year, eight months faraway from the election.

Responding to cries of hypocrisy from the left, McConnell has said that rule only applied because the Senate was controlled by a special party than the president; he reiterated that argument Friday.

Trump himself didn't appear to remember of Ginsburg’s death when McConnell released the statement. The news of Ginsburg’s death came during a campaign rally in Minnesota, where Trump didn't show any indication he was conscious of the news, apart from praising his potential future Supreme Court nominees, including Sen. Ted Cruz, and emphasizing the importance of the election for the longer term of the court. The White House didn't immediately answer an invitation for comment.

McConnell has long been on record saying he would appoint a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court in 2020 if a seat exposes , despite blocking Obama’s nominee in 2016. “Oh, we’d fill it,” McConnell told supporters in Kentucky last year.

The Friday night announcement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death comes but seven weeks before subsequent presidential election. But albeit Trump loses to Joe Biden, Republicans will control the Senate until a minimum of January.

Republicans hold a 53-seat majority within the 100-seat chamber. within the event of a tie, vice chairman Mike Pence casts the tie-breaking vote. due to that, four Republican senators would wish to object to a replacement Supreme Court nominee so as to dam a nomination, assuming all Democrats are opposed.

The White home is poised to swiftly name a nominee — Trump released an inventory of Supreme Court candidates he’d wish to nominate just last week. the weird practice of publicly naming potential candidates has given the administration and conservative legal advocacy groups time well beforehand of an actual open seat to vet potential nominees and develop a confirmation strategy. Trump announced the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh just fortnight after now-former justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in July 2018.

Republican nominees already hold a 5–4 majority on the Supreme Court, but replacing Ginsburg would shift the court even further to the right; justices serve lifetime appointments and may only be removed through impeachment, therefore the next justice could spend decades on the bench. Trump has lashed out at judge John Roberts Jr. for siding with Ginsburg and therefore the court’s liberal wing in rulings against his administration, suggesting he would attempt to fill subsequent vacancy with a more politically reliable nominee.

According to NPR, before she died, Ginsburg told her granddaughter: “My most fervent wish is that i will be able to not get replaced until a replacement president is installed.”

McConnell has been open about filling judicial vacancies and therefore the reshaping the ideological makeup of the courts being the highest priority of the Senate under the Trump administration. Under his watch, the Senate has rarely passed meaningful legislation, but it's confirmed quite 200 of Trump’s judicial nominees.

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Lindsey Graham released a press release Friday night expressing “great sadness” about Ginsburg’s death, but he didn't address what he would do if Trump announced a nominee. In October 2018, Graham said, “If a gap comes within the last year of President Trump's term, and therefore the primary process has started, we'll wait to subsequent election.” Asked to verify that statement at the time, Graham replied: “Hold the tape.”

Graham’s office didn't immediately return an invitation for comment. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is additionally on record saying he wouldn't support a Supreme Court nomination in 2020, though he and Graham are more reliable party-line voters over the past four years.

Trump has made the longer term of the Supreme Court a central a part of his reelection strategy, almost like his approach in 2016. Last week, he added 20 more judges, politicians, and lawyers to the 2 dozen names already on his shortlist. Conservative operatives have long predicted that Trump would choose a lady because the nominee if Ginsburg’s seat became open, either through her retirement or her death, with Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Judge Joan Larsen of the 6th Circuit long considered frontrunners.

The confirmation timelines for Trump’s first two Supreme Court nominees offer a guide for a way a 3rd nomination could play out over the approaching months.

It took just over two months from start to end for the Senate to verify Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch. He was nominated Feb. 1, 2017, and confirmed 54–45 on April 7, 2017. Democrats were largely united against his nomination, and McConnell pushed through changes to Senate procedure to form it about impossible for Democrats to use a filibuster to dam Gorsuch’s nomination from going forward.

Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, proved even more divisive than Gorsuch, but even that bitter political fight only took three months from nomination to confirmation. Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination July 9, 2018, and therefore the Senate confirmed him Oct. 10, 2018, a period that included a further Senate hearing to vet allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a celebration once they were both in highschool decades ago; Kavanaugh denied the allegation, and he was confirmed 50–48.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have both said they might oppose voting for a Supreme Court nominee too on the brink of the 2020 election, though those statements were made before Ginsburg’s death was announced Friday evening. Both senators, also as Mitt Romney of Utah, have cast high-profile votes con to Trump. Collins voted with Murkowski and therefore the late John McCain to kill Obamacare repeal. Romney voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. Murkowski voted against Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court (Collins voted in favor, while Romney wasn't yet within the Senate).