Holding firm:
Sen. John McCain says the president should not seek to fill the high-court vacancy.
Despite criticism and charges of hypocrisy, U.S. Sen. John McCain is standing by his decision to join fellow Senate Republicans in saying that President Barack Obama should not get to pick the replacement for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
McCain, R-Ariz., is facing several challengers in the state’s Aug. 30 GOP primary and, if he is re-nominated, is expected to face U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., in the Nov. 8 general election.
Kirkpatrick was quick to rip McCain for taking a seemingly politically calculated position that diverged from past stances that gave presidents leeway on judicial confirmations.
“This is about a lame-duck president who will be unaccountable to the American people,” McCain, R-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic. “And I think that one of the most important duties of a president of the United States is to nominate. Obviously, as we know, it’s the Senate that confirms. But I want the next president to be held responsible for the selection of his or her nominee.”
McCain also put blame on U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for the new standoff over a successor to Scalia, the long-serving and outspoken conservative justice who was found dead in Texas on Feb. 13.
Responding to what they considered GOP abuse of the filibuster tradition, Reid, as majority leader, and his fellow Democrats in 2013 detonated the socalled “nuclear option.” That changed the Senate rules to require just a simple majority for most presidential nominations, including judges.
McCain has previously said that “senatorial courtesy” died with Reid’s filibuster reform.
“When Harry Reid broke the rules to ram through judges to lifetime appointments -- he broke the rules -- I said at the time if you do this it will be impossible for us to cooperate with you,” McCain reiterated with regard to the Scalia situation.
Kirkpatrick has seized on the opportunity to paint McCain as a Republican partisan who has abandoned the “maverick” image he once successfully cultivat- ed with the national media.
“John McCain has changed — and what he is proposing is downright disgraceful coming from a man who always pledged to put ‘country first’ and called himself a maverick,” Kirkpatrick said in a written statement. “Now, instead of leading, McCain is following orders from his bosses in Washington and telling Americans we’ll have to wait a year to have a full Supreme Court. This isn’t a time for politics, it’s a time for leadership.”
Meanwhile, a “dark money” group linked to right-leaning billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch has begun running a television ad supporting McCain on the question. The Judicial Crisis Network also is running similar ads applauding Republican U.S. Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
“This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats, it’s about your voice,” the TV spot says. “You choose the next president. The next president chooses the next justice.”
Viewers are encouraged to call McCain to “thank him for letting the people decide.”
National Democrats blasted McCain over the ad.
“Here’s why he’s standing with obstructionists: McCain is too afraid to lose out on the Koch-connected dark money that’s propped up his Senate career,” Lauren Passalacqua, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s national press secretary, said in a statement. “It is clear that McCain has no interest in responsible governance or being honest with voters about who’s funding his campaign, and Arizona deserves better.”
In his interview with The Republic, McCain suggested that Obama was not being consistent given that, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama participated in the 2006 filibuster of President George W. Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the high court. Obama now regrets doing so, according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
“Barack Obama, proving that with some people, it’s not where you stand, it’s where you sit,” McCain said. In other developments:
As a member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is set to have an influential role in vetting any Supreme Court nominees and in the confirmation proceedings.
However, his position on an Obamanominated Scalia replacement is not clear. Since Scalia’s death was revealed, Flake has been leading a congressional delegation visit to Africa. He is set to return to the United States on Sunday.
“Sen. Flake is traveling overseas this week in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa,” his spokesman, Jason Samuels, said in an emailed statement. “Until he has returned home and had the opportunity to speak with his constituents and his colleagues, it’s unlikely he’ll be releasing any further comment on this.”
Kelli Ward, McCain’s most prominent primary challenger, is siding with Apple in its escalating fight with the U.S. Department of Justice over the locked iPhone of one of the terrorists killed in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, 2015.
Ward, a former state senator from Lake Havasu City, has a post on her website encouraging supporters to “Stand with Apple in Defense of the Fourth Amendment,” which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“The Federal Government has demanded that Apple build a ‘backdoor’ into iOS -- effectively creating a tool by which law enforcement can hack into any iPhone,” the Ward for Senate-paid page says. “By demanding that Apple compromises its own encryption, the Federal Government is attempting to set an extremely dangerous and unconstitutional precedent. Without due process, the Federal Government would be able to track our movements, monitor our communications, and expose incredible amounts of private information.”
The Ward campaign further warns that if Apple does build the “backdoor,” it could fall into the wrong hands and “give cyber-terrorists the tools they need to inflict serious damage to our nation’s digital infrastructure.”
Ward’s libertarian position may not turn out to be politically popular, at least at first. A national Rasmussen Reports telephone survey indicated that 50 percent of “likely U.S. voters” disagreed with Apple’s stance against the government while 36 percent agreed with Apple’s position. The other 14 percent was undecided. The automated Feb. 17 to Feb. 18 telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Nowicki is The Republic’s national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki and on his official Facebook page.