PIO front runner for Ginsburg seat

Washington, Sept. 19: Republican Senator Ted Cruz says President Donald Trump should nominate a successor to the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said a Supreme Court that is split 4-4 cannot decide anything.

The Texas senator is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will vote on Ginsburg’s successor. He is among 20 individuals Trump recently added to his list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

The Republican-led Senate in 2016 had refused to hold a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nomination to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court who died that February, saying it was an election year.

The 2020 election is 46 days away. The average number of days to confirm a justice, according to the Congressional Research Service, is 69 days,

Joe Biden has promised to nominate a woman of colour if given the chance.

The Hill newspaper, quoting sources, said that the Republican leadership in the Senate expects Trump to put forward a nominee and Circuit Judges Amy Coney Barrett and Amul Thapar are among the front runners.

Thapar was on Trump’s first shortlist of seven for the Supreme Court in 2016, before the elections.

Currently, a judge in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Thapar, 51, was one of the seven judges that Trump had interviewed in 2018 to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, after he announced his retirement. Trump finally nominated Kavanaugh.