GOP seeks to call off Senate work, but not Barrett hearings, after another lawmaker tests positive
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus reached further into Republican ranks on Saturday, forcing the Senate to call off lawmaking as a third GOP senator tested positive for COVID-19. Even so, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared he would push President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee toward confirmation in the shadow of the November election.
Trump and Senate Republicans had hoped the confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s would make the final case to voters of the party’s commitment to remake the court with a muscular conservative majority. But the hospitalization of Trump, and the infection of a trio of GOP senators, shattered any notion of changing the subject entirely from the virus that’s killed more than 205,000 Americans.
So great was the threat posed by COVID-19 that McConnell called off floor proceedings but not Barrett’s hearings, slated to begin Oct. 12. The Kentucky Republican, who is battling to save the GOP majority and running for reelection himself, was not about to give them up.
“The Senate’s floor schedule will not interrupt the thorough, fair and historically supported confirmation process,” McConnell wrote Saturday. Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who like McConnell is running for reelection, added that senators can attend the hearings remotely.
“Certainly,” McConnell said, “all Republican members of the committee will participate in these important hearings.”
But by weeks’ end, the relentless virus made clear it wouldn’t cede the national stage to anyone.
It had sidelined the president of the United States after a busy week of ceremonies and other events where few attendees wore masks, including on Air Force One. In the wee hours of Friday, Trump announced that he and first lady Melania Trump had been infected. Hours later, Trump was given supplemental oxygen and flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Republicans in the Senate who had attended GOP events began announcing that they too had tested positive. First was Utah Sen. Mike Lee, then North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. On Saturday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin announced he too had been infected. Several other Republicans announced they were awaiting test results or quarantining at home just to be safe.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer took aim at McConnell’s plan, saying that if the COVID threat is too great for Senate sessions, it makes Barrett’s confirmation perilous, too.
The Republicans’ “monomaniacal drive to confirm Judge Barrett at all costs needlessly threatens the health and safety of Senators, staff, and all those who work in the Capitol complex,” Schumer said in a statement.