President Obama and his spokesman ripped Senate Republicans on Tuesday for letting the Supreme Court begin a new term missing one justice.
The high court will consider cases about the death penalty and voting rights, “yet, regardless of the stakes, Republicans in Congress have forced the court to weigh these pivotal issues one justice short of the court’s full panel of nine,” Obama wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in the Huffington Post. “In a city of self-inflicted wounds, this one is more dangerous and less defensible than most.”
Obama pointed out that he nominated federal judge Merrick Garland 202 days ago, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not even scheduled a hearing for him, let alone a confirmation vote.
The “last time a Supreme Court seat was kept vacant through Election Day was in 1864,” Obama wrote.
Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest said he does not anticipate needing the Supreme Court to intervene in the presidential election, but if it is called upon, having only eight justices will be a problem.
“I think it’s hard to speculate at this point what sort of role the Supreme Court could have in this election, but I think regardless of whether or not they’re needed to resolve the outcome of a national election, the president is deeply concerned about the impact that the understaffed court is having on the ability of the Supreme Court to do its job,” Earnest said.
