Trump says he will move ‘without delay’ to fill Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat.
President tells Senate to consider a nominee ‘without delay’
Washington — President Donald Trump on Saturday urged the Republican-run Senate to consider “without delay” his upcoming nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just six weeks before the election.
One Republican senator opposing that move was Maine’s Susan Collins, who is in a tough reelection battle. In a statement, Collins said she believed replacing Ginsburg should be the decision of the president who is elected Nov. 3. Three more defections from the GOP ranks would be needed to stop Trump’s nominee from joining the court.
The White House was moving quickly to select a nominee, likely before the first presidential debate 10 days away, for the seat held by Ginsburg, who spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed on Friday night, hours after Ginsburg’s death, to call a vote for Trump’s upcoming nominee. Democrats countered that Republicans should follow the precedent that GOP legislators set in 2016 by refusing to consider a Supreme Court choice in the run-up to an election.
Trump made his view clear in a tweet Saturday: “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!”
McConnell pledged to Trump in a phone call Friday night to bring the choice to a vote.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said any selection should come after the Nov. 3 election. “Voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice to consider,” he said.
The impending clash over the vacant seat — when to fill it and with whom — scrambles the stretch run of a presidential race for a nation already reeling from the pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 people, left millions unemployed and heightened partisan tensions and anger.
Trump just last week added 20 more names to his roster of potential court nominees, and aides in recent days have focused on a short list heavy on female candidates, according to four White House aides and officials close to the process. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.
The president could announce his choice this coming week and almost certainly before his first debate with Biden on Sept. 29, according to the officials.
Those under close consideration for the high court include three woman who are federal appeals court judges: Amy Coney Barrett, beloved among conservatives and an early favorite; Barbara Lagoa, who is Hispanic and comes from the battleground state of Florida; and Allison Jones Rushing, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and for Neil Gorsuch, when the current Trump-appointed justice was an appeals court judge.
Beyond the idea of replacing Ginsburg with a woman, aides view the selection of a female nominee on the eve of the presidential election as a possible counterweight of sorts to Biden’s choice of California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris would be the nation’s first female vice president.