Democrats are making a new push to embarrass Republicans for blocking President Obama’s choice for the next Supreme Court justice, including tying Republicans refusing to consider Merrick Garland to presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
Brushing off the Democratic plan, Republicans insist it’s a desperation tactic that won’t work.
Democrats plan to blitz the states of nine Republicans senators for nine days to fill the ninth seat on the high court.
Democrats call this the 9-9-9 campaign. Coincidentally, is the same term Republican Herman Cain used describe his 2012 tax plan during his 2012 presidential bid.
In addition to pressing the Senate “to do their job” and at least hold hearings for Garland, the new campaign will include more references to Trump and make the point that if Obama is denied his nominee, it could allow Trump to fill the lifetime post on the high court.
“The question for Mitch McConnell and company: Is it worth giving up the majority in the slim chance Donald Trump will ever be able to smooth things over with the millions of women and minority voters he’s alienated that are needed to win the presidency?” asked Brad Woodhouse, the president of Americans United for Change.
A spokeswoman for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the Republicans targeted, dismissed the new Democratic effort as an act of desperation after their campaign to pressure Republicans to stop blocking Garland fell flat. Republicans have also pointed to polls that show most voters aren’t tuning into the message.
“Despite [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid spouting lies and misinformation on the Senate floor and airplanes flying banners, it’s clear that the push by the White House and its liberal activist groups is fizzling and hasn’t made a dent in the desire to give the American people a voice in the direction of the Supreme Court,” Grassley’s spokeswoman Beth Levine told the Washington Examiner.
“The latest propaganda game will undoubtedly continue to be filled with misinformation and half-truths, which the American people simply won’t buy,” she added.
Levine was referring to a March effort on the part of MoveOn.org and Credo Action to organize protesters over the Senate’s Spring recess to show up at GOP senators’ events with signs reading “Do Your Job” and “Hold a Hearing, Take a Vote.” In five states represented by GOP senators, planes also made lunchtime flights with banners calling on the lawmakers to “Do your job.”
A spokesman for Senate Republicans’ re-election arm echoed Levine’s remarks, and said the 9-9-9 campaign is full of stunts that will fail just as others did.
“Democrats have tried every trick in the book to circumvent the American people and force a vote on Obama’s partisan nominee during an election year,” said Greg Blair, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. “This is just another public relations stunt aimed at upending the balance of the court before voters have a chance to speak. Like the rest of these efforts, this one will fail as well.”
Democrats, including the White House and outside allies, argue that steady pressure will turn public opinion against the GOP’s decision to block Garland, and at least make life more difficult for vulnerable Senate Republicans. The GOP has nearly twice as many senators up for re-election as the Democrats do. Democrats think that while GOP base voters may support blocking Garland, the unprecedented move will push independents their way and encourage more supporters to vote in down ballot races.
The liberal outside groups leading the 9-9-9 campaign, including the Constitutional Responsibility Project and Americans United for Change, have expanded their ad campaign against six vulnerable Republicans incumbents in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa. In Iowa, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is in a tougher than expected race. In Illinois, the groups are hitting Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, who faces an uphill fight against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, in a blue-leaning state, even though Kirk has urged his colleagues to consider Garland.
The new effort will now cover three more Republicans: Arizona’s John McCain, North Carolina’s Richard Burr and Missouri’s Roy Blunt.
“If Senators Burr, McCain and Blunt thought they were going to get a pass, they were wrong,” the outside groups said in a release Friday. “At the rate this is going, if Republicans continue this blockade, they may as well hand over their gavels now.”
The groups plan to have a mobile billboard campaign circling outside senators’ town halls and campaign events over the next week when the Senate is in recess.
In addition, the mobile billboards will be driving around the neighborhoods where the senators live and their district offices, and the groups will hold press events, some with nurses and janitors saying they’d be fired if they didn’t show up to work and do their jobs, according to a Politico report.
Polls have varied on the topic. Several show that Democrats are gaining traction in their messaging. Another more recent one claimed that most voters are tuning out the issue while the rollercoaster 2016 election dominates the media.
A recent NBC-WSJ poll showed that a majority of voters, 52 percent believe the Senate should hold a vote this year while 30 percent want to leave it vacant and wait until next year under a new president, while 18 percent have no opinion.
A different poll released on the same day by iMediaEthics shows that only about a third of Americans have a strong opinion either way on whether Garland is confirmed, while a clear majority admit they have no opinion on the matter at all.
