Sen. Chuck Schumer, D–N.Y., on Monday called on members the public to put pressure on the Senate to reject any Supreme Court nominee that’s on President Trump’s list of potential nominees, in order to force Trump to pick someone more moderate.
“If you do not want a Supreme Court Justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade and undo the Affordable Care Act, tell your senators they should not vote for a candidate from Mr. Trump’s preordained list,” Schumer wrote in the New York Times.
“If the Senate rejects an extreme candidate, it would present President Trump the opportunity to instead select a moderate, consensus nominee,” he wrote.
Schumer added that senators should “lock arms” and reject people on Trump’s list, but he said that wouldn’t happen without public pressure.
“It will not happen on its own,” he wrote. “It requires the public’s focus on these issues, and its pressure on the Senate.”
Schumer said Democrats have a chance at beating back a Trump nominee. With Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., still out, Republicans have a slim 50-49 majority, and Schumer said the votes should be there to protect Obamacare and abortion rights.
He argued that Trump’s list of potential nominees were “vetted by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society — organizations whose mission is to reverse Roe v. Wade and shrink government’s involvement in healthcare.”
The battle over the next Supreme Court justice emerged last week after Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was nominated by the late former President Ronald Reagan but is known as a swing vote in the Supreme Court, announced he would be retiring at the end of July after serving for 30 years.
Many Democrats argue that the Senate should not consider any Trump nominee until after the 2018 election, and say that delay is similar to the Republican decision not to consider former President Barack Obama’s nominee until after the 2016 election. But Republicans say the tradition in the Senate has been to delay Supreme Court decisions until after presidential elections, not midterm elections.
