Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary committee, put it plainly. “There’ll be no hearing, no votes until the next president,” Graham said Tuesday as he left the first weekly GOP conference meeting since the death of Antonin Scalia.
The passing of the justice after 30 years on the Supreme Court has offered Barack Obama the chance to replace the conservative Scalia with a justice more aligned with the president. But Republican leaders in the Senate have insisted that with an election already underway, the next president should be the one to appoint someone to the high court. And on Tuesday, the Republican majority on the Judiciary committee unanimously agreed that the Senate should not hold hearings on anyone Obama nominates.
In a letter to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, the Judiciary Republicans cited the Senate’s constitutional power to “grant, or withhold, consent” (emphasis in the original) a presidential judicial nominee. “[G]iven the particular circumstances under which this vacancy arises, we wish to inform you of our intention to exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any nominee to the Supreme Court submitted by this President to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy,” reads the letter. “[T]his Committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after our next President is sworn in on January 20, 2017.” The letter was signed by committee chairman Chuck Grassley and the nine other Republican members of the committee.
Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, McConnell said most of the rest of the Senate Republicans hold the same view. “My view, and I can now confidently say the view shared by virtually everybody in my conference, is that the nomination should be made by the president the people elect in the election that is underway right now.”
John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who is the majority whip and who sits on the Judiciary committee, defended the committee’s decision not to hold hearings on an Obama nominee. Cornyn and McConnell both suggested they would not entertain any meetings with a potential Obama nominee, as is customary for Senate leaders at the beginning of the confirmation process.
“I don’t see the point in going through the motions when we know what the outcome is going to be,” Cornyn said. “I don’t see the point in going through the motions and creating a misleading impression that something else is going on here.”
