Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t rule out taking up a Supreme Court nomination in the next presidential election year, even though Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he won’t cooperate.
“That’s an interesting hypothesis,” McConnell said when asked about the prospect of an opening. “We’ll see what happens if there is a vacancy in 2020.”
McConnell, R-Ky., dodged directly answering a question about Grassley’s statement on Fox this week that he would respect the precedent McConnell set in 2016 and not move a high court nominee through his committee in 2020. The Judiciary Committee is the first stop for a Supreme Court nominee. It conducts the confirmation hearing and holds a vote on the nominee before a final floor vote.
“If I’m chairman, they won’t take it up, no,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said when asked if the Senate Judiciary Committee would consider another Trump Supreme Court nomination in 2020. “Now if someone else is chairman of the committee, they’ll have to decide for themselves. But that’s a decision I made a long time ago.”
The conflict could pit McConnell against Grassley.
Grassley believes the Senate should not consider a nominee in an election year because Republicans ignored former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, in 2016.
But McConnell sees it differently. In recent weeks he has argued the rule only applies if the White House and Senate are ruled by opposite parties.
“The Senate in the hands of one party and the White House in the hands of another in a presidential election year,” McConnell said on Monday, explaining why he did not allow a vote on Garland. “That is what we had in 2016.”
