Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on his Republican counterpart to delay consideration of a Supreme Court nomination until after the 2018 midterm elections in the wake of the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.
[Related: Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote this fall on a new justice]
Schumer cited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., decision in 2016 to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat open until the presidential election was decided after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the seat.
“Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016: not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Sen. McConnell would tell anyone who listened that the Senate had the right to advise and consent, and that was every bit as important as the president’s right to nominate.
“Millions of people are just months away from determining the senators who should vote to confirm or reject the president’s nominee, and their voices deserve to be heard now as Leader McConnell thought they deserved to be heard then,” Schumer said.
“Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy,” Schumer said.
[Also read: Trump sticking with list of 25 potential Supreme Court justices to replace Anthony Kennedy]
