GOP appears to have backing for high court vote
Romney shows support for confirmation hearings
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump won a crucial victory Tuesday in the battle to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Senate Republicans largely coalesced around a goal of rapidly confirming a yet-to-be-named nominee, possibly before the November presidential election.
Just four days after Ginsburg’s death, wavering Senate Republicans have mostly lined up behind Trump’s desire to move quickly on the nominee he intends to name Saturday.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who has had a combative relationship with Trump for years, became the latest lawmaker to embrace the president’s desire to move forward with a confirmation in an election year, paving the way for conservatives to expand their control of the Supreme Court and dashing Democratic hopes of slowing the process down.
“I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee,” Romney announced Tuesday, joining several other centrist Republicans. “If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications.”
Republican leaders have not presented a timeline for holding a vote to fill the vacancy, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued there is plenty of time to consider a nominee before the Nov. 3 election. Trump echoed that sentiment, asserting that “there’s really a lot of time” between now and the presidential election.
“Sen. Romney is recognizing what any of us who take a clear-eyed look at precedent recognizes,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday. “The precedent is on our side here.”
During a Tuesday meeting of Republican senators, some lawmakers told their colleagues that they preferred to push the nomination through before the election.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told reporters he and several other Republican senators said “there were too many variables post-election that would make it complicated, so I’m going to be vocally for getting this done, vetted properly, and getting it done before the election.”
McConnell left the timing of a confirmation to be determined after it went through committee, telling reporters “when the nomination comes out of committee, I’ll decide when and how to proceed.”
Democrats acknowledged they can do little to delay the vote. Asked Tuesday whether Democrats could obstruct the process, Sen. Jon Tester, DMont., told reporters that Democrats could appeal to Republicans’ “sense of honesty and ethics, and that’s basically it.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the secondranking Senate Democrat, told reporters: “I’ve been around here a few years. You can slow things down but you can’t stop them. And there comes a point, we use whatever tools we have available, but ultimately there will be a vote.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attempted to pass a nonbinding resolution on the Senate floor Tuesday to recognize Ginsburg’s service and ask the Senate to answer her dying wish that the seat not be filled until after the election, but Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, blocked its passage, arguing the addition of language about Ginsburg’s wishes made it a “partisan resolution.”
Asked about Ginsburg’s request for the next president to pick her replacement, McConnell told reporters Tuesday, “I prefer another thing she said recently, which was she thought the number of the Supreme Court ought to be nine.”
Most Republicans have sprinted away from concerns they raised four years ago about allowing then-President Barack Obama to name Judge Merrick Garland to the court in an election year, giving Democrats a chance to charge hypocrisy but leaving them powerless to do much about it. In addition to Romney, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who is retiring this year, and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who faces a tough election, have indicated a willingness to move toward approving Trump’s pick.
Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have said they opposed moving forward to fill the vacancy before the election.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning they can lose only four votes on a nomination if all Democrats voted against it. Barring a major surprise, the announcements by Alexander and Romney appear to give Trump the votes he needs.
Romney called it appropriate for a “nation which is, if you will, centerright, to have a court which reflects center-right points of view, which again are not changing the law from what it states, but instead following the law and following the Constitution.”
“I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee.” Sen. Mitt Romney