President Trump is urging Republicans to waste no time in filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court that opened up last night with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.
Trump tweeted this morning to the GOP’s official Twitter account: “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!”
Ginsburg’s dying wish was reportedly to not have Donald Trump choose her replacement.
Mitch McConnell had called for filling the vacancy before Trump. McConnell was immediately met with criticism from people reminding him that when an opening was present during the final year of Obama’s presidency, he said “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
McConnell says this isn’t a contradiction, however. “In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise,” McConnell said “Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”
There could be difficulty in finding votes in the senate, however. Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, Lisa Murkowski, and have all committed to not voting for a new Supreme Court Justice until after January 20, 2021, and Mitt Romney will likely join them, leaving 49 Republican Senators.
Then again, that shouldn’t matter when Trump is still president on January 20th, 2021.
