Trump’s Supreme plan to roil election
US mourns liberal judge
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump vowed on Saturday to quickly nominate a successor, probably a woman, to replace late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, only a day after the death of the liberal stalwart.
The President’s desire “to move quickly” on the process, despite Democrats’ vehement opposition, is likely to dominate the campaign — alongside other hot-button issues such as the coronavirus and America’s ongoing racial reckoning — ahead of the November 3 election.
“I think it’s going to move quickly actually,” Mr Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday, adding that he thought his choice would be made “next week”. The 87-year-old Ms Ginsburg, immensely popular among Democrats, died on Friday after a long battle with cancer, prompting an outpouring of national grief.
Ms Ginsburg’s death, weeks before the election, offers Republicans a chance to lock in a decades-long conservative majority on the court.
The stakes are high as the decision could affect such life-and-death issues as abortion, healthcare, gun control and gay rights. They are pushed even higher in a bitter election year when the justices can play a decisive role in legal wrangling over a contested result — such as when they ruled in George W. Bush’s favour to end the 2000 election debacle.
Mr Trump has already named two justices during his first term as president, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gor-such, giving conservatives a 5-4 majority before Ms Ginsburg’s death, though that does not guarantee rulings in Mr Trump’s favour — there have been several recent examples of conservatives siding with their progressive colleagues.
Mr Trump, lagging in the polls behind Joe Biden, has another powerful incentive to move ahead: providing a jolt of enthusiasm among his anti-abortion and evangelical supporters.
At a rally in North Carolina later on Saturday, he took an impromptu crowd poll, asking them to cheer for a woman or a man to be his pick. The crowd cheered considerably louder for a woman. “That’s a very accurate poll because that’s the way I feel,” he said. “It will be a woman. A very talented, very brilliant woman, who I haven’t chosen yet — but we have numerous women on the list.”
Ms Ginsburg was one of only three women on the nine-person bench. But, with 45 days to the election and early voting already begun in some states, galvanised Democrats are pushing back furiously.
Mr Biden said on Friday “the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider”. The prospect of a fierce partisan nomination battle and rushed Senate confirmation vote has ignited his party. While Democrats’ options seem limited, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer told party members on Saturday if Republicans press ahead, then “nothing is off the table”.
“This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” Mr Schumer said, echoing Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in 2016 when he blocked Barack Obama nominee Merrick Garland.
Republicans in theory have the Senate votes to push through a Trump nominee, but they could be blocked by only a handful of defections.
Republican senator Susan Collins became the first on Saturday, saying she would not support a vote on before the election.