President Trump’s pick to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is likely to become one of the most partisan battles ever over the direction of the Supreme Court.
Ginsburg’s death at age 87 last week brought a cascade of demands from Democrats that Trump and the GOP hold off filling the vacant seat until the next president is sworn into office.
“There is no precedent for confirming a Supreme Court Justice between July and Election Day,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.
But Republicans are refusing to pass up the opportunity to shape the court’s direction, possibly for decades, and are pledging a vote sometime this year and most likely before Election Day.
The new nominee is expected to begin making the Senate rounds as early as the week of Sept. 29.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, run by Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, aims for an Oct. 12 start to the confirmation hearings, Republican sources told the Washington Examiner. However, he will not announce the timeline until Saturday, when Trump names the nominee at 5 p.m.
Even without an official confirmation schedule set, Republicans aim for a vote before the Nov. 3 election.
The Senate’s GOP majority could flip to the Democrats, polls indicate, and Democrat Joe Biden stands a good chance of beating Trump, polls also show.
Republicans told the Washington Examiner a “lame-duck” confirmation may be difficult if the GOP loses big in November, so the party is seeking to avoid that risk.
“I’m confident we can have a hearing that will allow the nominee to be submitted to the floor before Election Day,” Graham said last week. “Following the precedents of the Senate, I think we can do that.”
Democrats plan to do everything in their limited power to stop the Senate from confirming Trump’s pick, but their options are relatively narrow and benign.
They can, for example, delay the confirmation by a week.
“We’ve begun strategizing about the tools that we have,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. “Let’s be very clear, our tools are limited. We have no magic panacea.”
According to insiders, Trump plans to select a woman, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a constitutional scholar who is the favored choice of conservatives, is in the lead to get the nomination. Barrett and two other favorites, including Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Lagoa, were all recently confirmed by the Senate to the federal bench, which would help shorten the Senate’s time to review the nomination.
But Democrats are likely to seek ways to derail a confirmation by picking off Republicans, as they did during the Senate’s consideration of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh was on the verge of confirmation in September 2018, when a decadesold sexual assault allegation arose in the Washington Post.
A brutal, partisan fight dragged out the nomination process for weeks until the Senate narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh.
Democrats plan to challenge the nominee aggressively, even though it will be a woman.
They are warning a conservative-leaning court will overturn legal abortion and the remnants of Obamacare, including popular provisions protecting preexisting health conditions.
Expect some of the most challenging questioning to come from Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a former prosecutor who liberal groups praised for aggressively grilling Kavanaugh in 2018.
Harris also happens to be running for vice president.
Harris has signaled she is eager to stop Trump’s nominee from winning confirmation.
“The Supreme Court makes decisions on issues that affect millions of Americans—including health care, the economy, our fight for racial justice, climate change, and more,” Harris tweeted last week.
“The voters must choose a president, and that president should nominate Justice Ginsburg’s successor.”
