EYES ON PRIZE
Romney’s decision solidifies support in Senate to quickly fill Ginsburg’s vacant seat
Sen. Mitt Romney’s support all but solidifies President Trump’s push to fill the coveted vacancy.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said Tuesday that he would back President Donald Trump’s push to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, cementing all but monolithic Republican support six weeks before the presidential election for confirming a new justice who would tilt the court decisively to the right.
Neither party is sure how the court fight will affect the election.
“At this point, I would say that our conference is committed to moving forward,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican.
Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, was the only Republican to vote to convict and remove the president from office during his impeachment trial in February. But with deeply held religious beliefs and conservative principles, Romney was not about to pass up an opportunity to cement a court that could limit abortion rights, further empower business interests and potentially strike down far-reaching federal programs that future Democratic administrations may try to enact.
“My liberal friends have over many decades gotten very used to the idea of having a liberal court, but that’s not written in the stars,” Romney said, despite that the high court has had a majority of Republican nominees for decades. “I know a lot of people are saying, ‘Gosh, we don’t want that change.’ I understand the energy associated with that perspective. But it’s also appropriate for a nation that is, if you will, centerright to have a court which reflects center-right points of view.”
With Trump planning to wait until Saturday to announce his nominee at the White House, Senate leaders remained publicly undecided about whether to try to rush through a confirmation vote before the Nov. 3 election. But Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have begun privately making preparations for a confirmation process that could play out in as little as a month, a drastically abbreviated timeline compared with other recent Supreme Court nominees.
Democrats, conceding that they did not have the power to stop it, unleashed a torrent of anger and parliamentary tactics intended to disrupt Senate business. They accused Republicans of hypocrisy, pointing to their refusal in early 2016 to consider Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, because it was an election year.
“We can’t have business as usual when Republicans are destroying the institution, as they have done,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
There is considerable political risk for Republicans. Early public polling suggests that voters believe the winner of the election ought to be the one to fill the seat, and they could punish Trump and Republican senators on the ballot for their power play, potentially costing the party the White House and the Senate majority.
By Tuesday, it appeared Republican leaders and Trump would hold defections within the party to just two: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who have said they would not support filling the vacancy so close to the election.
At the White House, Trump and his advisers continued to contemplate a handful of possible nominees, all women, before the announcement Saturday. But while Trump is likely to meet with Judge Barbara Lagoa of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, four people briefed on his thinking said the decision was close to made in favor of Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago.