GOP wants work pause, but not for pick to court

» Republicans on Saturday sought to call off legislative work in the Senate until Oct. 19 as the coronavirus reached into their ranks. But they vowed that hearings for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee would push ahead as planned even as lawmakers increasingly demanded testing for everyone on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett will begin Oct. 12, even if Democrats agree to cancel the regular Senate session to avoid further spread of COVID- 19. Since Friday morning, three GOP senators have announced they have tested positive.

“The Senate’s floor schedule will not interrupt the thorough, fair and historically supported confirmation process,” the Kentucky

Republican wrote. Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who is running for reelection in South Carolina, added that senators can attend the hearings virtually.

“Certainly,” McConnell wrote, “all Republican members of the committee will participate in these important hearings.”

But Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer took aim at that 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.

However, Schumer notably did not say Democrats would block McConnell’s plan. Doing so could force the Senate back into the confines of the Capitol without the mandatory testing of lawmakers and their aides.

The back- and- forth served as an emphatic reminder that Senate Republicans defending their majority had hoped for an election season finale focused on their power to solidify a conservative majority on the high court.

Two members of the Judiciary Committee, Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, on Friday announced that like Trump, they had tested positive for the virus.

On Saturday, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is not a member of the judiciary panel, announced that he, too, had tested positive.

With three Republican senators infected and others awaiting results, McConnell is without a fully working majority of 50 senators. He would need to rely on Vice President Mike Pence to be on hand to break any tie votes.