GOP calls off duties, but not Barrett hearings
WASHINGTON » The coroniavirus 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 byweeks’ 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.
Members of the House and Senate, meanwhile, increasingly demanded that Congress adopt uniform testing and tracing plans for anyone in the warren of the Capitol.
McConnell, who advocates often for mask-wearing, bowed to the concerns by pushing Senate business to Oct. 19. But hemade clear that the Barrett nomination would open Oct. 12 as
planned.
“Just had another great call with @POTUS,” McConnell tweeted Saturday afternoon. “He sounds well and says he’s feeling good. We talked about the people’s business — fighting the pandemic, confirming Judge Barrett, and strengthening the economy for American families.”
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.
Schumer notably did not say Democrats would block McConnell’s plan. Doing so could force the Senate back into the confines of the Capitol, where no one wants to be, without the mandatory testing of lawmakers and their aides.
McConnell had led the Senate this spring in an early return to the Capitol, asHouse SpeakerNancy Pelosi put in place a new system that allows lawmakers inthemuch larger chamber to vote by proxy rather than trek to Washington.
But even McConnell’s efforts at creating a semblance of normalcy in the Senate splintered with the quick-moving developments following the president’s hospitalization. The news about Covid’s march into theWhiteHouse didn’t let up andwasn’t flattering after months of complaints that Republicans weren’t approaching the pandemic in a serious or organized way.
For example, Trump’s doctors on Saturday painted a rosy picture of the president’s health during a press conference. Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley refused to say whether the president had ever needed supplemental oxygen and declined to discuss exactly when Trump fell ill.