Our View: Senate hypocrites rush to ram through court pick
To the surprise of virtually no one, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett on Saturday to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
If the choice, announced in the Rose Garden even before Ginsburg’s burial, was lacking in the reality-show suspense that surrounded Trump’s two previous picks, the outcome might well be the same: another conservative justice confirmed on a near party-line vote in the Senate following a contentious confirmation process, this one on the cusp of a presidential election.
It is particularly egregious that an institution once known as the world’s greatest deliberative body would attempt to rush through a Supreme Court nomination even as it has been unable to pass another relief bill for the millions of Americans suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Supreme Court confirmations typically take time, and for good reason. Justices are arguably the nine most powerful people in government behind the president. They can serve for the rest of their lives, will never face voters, and routinely rule on deeply personal and immensely political matters.
In the upcoming term, the justices are expected to decide once again on the fate of the Affordable Care Act, which is to say the ability of millions of Americans to buy health insurance. Abortion rights could well be on the line in the not too distant future.
For these reasons, it is important that the Senate asks a number of threshold questions before it even delves into the particulars of Judge Barrett, 48, who is serving on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
First among the questions: Is it wise to pursue a heated confirmation fight just 38 days from an election? This is the closest to a U.S. presidential election a nomination has been made; in fact, early voting is already underway.
Another question is whether it is possible to do the due diligence on any candidate for the high court, one who could serve for decades, at the breakneck speed proposed by Senate Republicans, who are said to be eyeing a late-October confirmation vote.
Most important, is it fair for Republicans to hold open a vacancy for the better part of a year in 2016, when a Democrat was president — citing the pending election as a rationale — and then do a 180-degree turn when a Republican makes a nomination?
Four years ago, Republicans insisted their actions were principled. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a USA TODAY opinion piece that the Senate should hold up action on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland because “the American people deserve a voice in such a momentous decision.” Never mind that it was eight months before the election, and that Garland had sterling credentials.
And Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who was on the Senate Judiciary Committee then and is now its chairman, was even more unequivocal. “I want you to use my words against me,” he said. “If there’s a Republican president (elected) in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say: ‘Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.’ ”
Senator, we’re using your words against you.
The answer to all these questions — whether it’s wise to have a confirmation battle in the home stretch of a critical election, whether there’s enough time before the election to give the choice sufficient scrutiny, and whether Senate Republicans have any high ground to stand on — is no.