Murkowski opposes moving forward with Supreme
Court nomination
She joins Sen. Susan Collins as the only GOP senators
to so far oppose Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s effort.
Murkowski became the second Republican senator to
oppose moving forward with a Supreme Court nomination in light of Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s death.
By NOLAN D.
MCCASKILL and ANDREW DESIDERIO
09/20/2020
12:27 PM EDT
Updated:
09/20/2020 03:33 PM EDT
Sen. Lisa
Murkowski on Sunday became the second Republican senator to oppose moving
forward with a Supreme Court nomination after the death of Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, further complicating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s effort
to fill the vacancy before Election Day.
“For weeks,
I have stated that I would not support taking up a potential Supreme Court
vacancy this close to the election,” the Alaska Republican said in a statement.
“Sadly, what was then a hypothetical is now our reality, but my position has
not changed.”
Murkowski joins
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as the only GOP senators to so far oppose the bid
by McConnell (R-Ky.) to fill Ginsburg’s seat immediately. McConnell can afford
to lose only three Republicans, and all Democrats are expected to back Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in arguing that Ginsburg’s seat should not be
filled until 2021.
Murkowski,
who has frequently bucked her party’s leadership, noted that she did not
support President Barack Obama’s effort to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat
in 2016, and that “the same standard must apply” this election year.
Collins on
Saturday said the winner of the Nov. 3 presidential election should nominate
Ginsburg’s replacement, though she is not opposed to the Senate Judiciary
Committee‘s beginning to process President Donald Trump’s nominee before
Election Day. McConnell has not specified an exact time frame for processing a
nomination, which on average takes around two months from start to finish.
When the
Senate returns to Washington on Monday, McConnell’s leadership team is expected
to meet to discuss the GOP strategy. And on Tuesday, all Senate Republicans
will gather for the first time since Ginsburg’s death on Friday evening.
Marc Short,
Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, said on Sunday that Trump had
already narrowed his list and was “prepared to make a nomination very soon.”
Trump is expected to announce a nominee later this week, and has said he will
choose a woman.
“It’s
certainly possible” a nominee could be confirmed before Election Day, Short
told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “But I think that the
president’s obligation is to make the nomination. We’ll leave the timetable to
Leader McConnell.”
Democrats
have mounted an intense pressure campaign amid McConnell’s stated intention to
fill the vacancy immediately, noting that Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s
nominee to replace Scalia in 2016, Merrick Garland, from being considered. At
the time, Republicans said it was too close to an election for a Senate and
White House controlled by different parties to process a Supreme Court
nomination.
On Sunday
afternoon, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, appealed to the
handful of Republican senators who control the fate of the next nomination.
“Please
follow your conscience,” Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia. “Don't vote to
confirm anyone nominated under the circumstances President Trump and Senator
McConnell have created. Don't go there. Uphold your constitutional duty, your
conscience, let the people speak. Cool the flames that have been engulfing our
country. We can‘t ignore the cherished system of checks and balances.”
Democratic
lawmakers earlier in the day noted that Election Day is only six weeks away and
early voting has already begun in several states. Ginsburg’s absence leaves the
court with a 5-3 split in favor of conservatives, and the high court is set to
take up a case that could determine the fate of Obamacare just one week after
the election.
Sen. Tim
Kaine (D-Va.) told POLITICO that Republicans essentially created a new rule in
2016 that the Senate should wait to advance a Supreme Court nominee in the
final year of a presidential term, and that Democrats are united in holding
them to that.
“It doesn’t
really matter who it is,” he said of the future nominee. “We are unified in the
proposition that we want to hold the Republicans to their word, and we will not
entertain a nominee until after Inauguration Day.”
Senate
Democrats have limited tools at their disposal as the minority party. Sen. John
Barrasso of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate GOP conference, was adamant that
the process would move forward this year.
“The
president is going to make a nomination,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the
Press.” “We will hold hearings, and there will be a vote on the floor of the
United States Senate this year.”
Sen. Ted
Cruz of Texas went even further, insisting that confirming a nominee before the
Nov. 3 election was “the right thing to do.” Cruz cited in 2016 “a long
tradition” of not considering Supreme Court nominees in an election year.
At least
three Republicans recalled on the Sunday shows that there have been 29
vacancies in a presidential election year, and that presidents named a nominee
all 29 times. The big difference, Cruz told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s
“This Week,” is that the Senate traditionally confirms that nominee when the
Senate majority and president are members of the same party.
“It’s not
just simply your party, my party,” he said. “The reason is, it’s a question of
checks and balances. In order for a Supreme Court nomination to go forward, you
have to have the president and the Senate.”
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Sen. Tom
Cotton of Arkansas said it’s “too soon to say right now” whether Republicans
would confirm a nominee before the election, but he insisted the Senate would
move forward “without delay,” echoing the president’s language.
“In 2014,
the American people elected a Republican majority to the Senate to put the
brakes on President Obama’s judicial nominations. In 2018, we had a referendum
on this question,” Cotton told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” citing the
contentious confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“There
could not have been a clearer mandate, because the American people didn’t just
reelect Republicans. They expanded our majority,” Cotton said. “They defeated
four Democratic senators who voted against Justice Kavanaugh. They reelected
the one Democratic senator who did vote for Justice Kavanaugh.”
Democrats
who appeared on the Sunday shows were uniformly opposed to the Senate’s
advancing Trump’s future nominee, especially given that polling shows Biden
currently favored to win the election and Democrats could regain control of the
Senate.
But the
party appeared to try several different tacks rather than one unified strategy.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said he would personally appeal to his Republican
colleagues, who he suggested should respect the 2016 precedent they set. Sen.
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and former President Bill Clinton both recalled that
President Abraham Lincoln allowed the election to occur before making a Supreme
Court nomination when a vacancy opened this close to Election Day.
And Speaker
Nancy Pelosi of California said the president’s rush to nominate a replacement
was evidence that he is more focused on crushing the Affordable Care Act than
the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans.
Pelosi shut
down the possibility of Democrats leveraging government funding to slow down
the Senate’s confirmation process but did maintain that Democrats have “arrows
in our quiver” to stop the Senate from advancing a nominee. She declined,
however, to discuss their options.
“People
have something at stake in this decision and how quickly the president wants to
go,” Pelosi said on “This Week.” “I don’t think they care about who said what
when and all the rest of that, but they do care about their own health and
well-being and the financial health and well-being of their families.”
NPR
reported on Friday that Ginsburg had dictated to her granddaughter, “My most
fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is
installed.” Republicans have largely dismissed that desire.
“She’s
certainly a giant upon whose shoulders many will stand, and she blazed a trail
for many women in the legal profession,” said Short, the vice president‘s chief
of staff. “But the decision to nominate does not lie with her.”
Clinton,
who nominated Ginsburg to the high court and appeared on three programs Sunday,
said it would be worth waiting to see whether people care that several
senators, including some up for reelection this fall, are going to go against
their positions from 2016.
“It would
be very interesting to see whether their position could only be justified as:
‘If my party can do it, now I’m for it. If their party can do it, then I’m
against it,” Clinton said on “This Week.” “And if that’s the rule of life in
America, then who knows what the consequences will be.”
Marianne
LeVine and Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.
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