Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz argued that history supports President Trump’s choice to nominate someone to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Twenty-nine times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That’s what presidents do. If there’s a vacancy, they make a nomination,” Cruz said Sunday on ABC.
.@tedcruz: “29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That’s what presidents do. If there’s a vacancy, they make a nomination”https://t.co/LY7jt2sK0c pic.twitter.com/Iv02JxuMOU
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2020
Cruz went on to argue that the difference between a nominee being confirmed or not often hinges on which party controls the Senate.
“When the Senate has been of the same party … of the 29 times, those are 19 of them. Of those 19, the Senate has confirmed those nominees 17 times,” Cruz said. “When the parties are different, that’s happened 10 times, Merrick Garland was one of them. Of those 10, the Senate has confirmed the nominees only twice.”
Garland was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Barack Obama in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican-controlled Senate refused to take up the nomination, opting instead to wait until after the election. After Trump’s victory, Justice Neil Gorsuch was nominated to the court and confirmed by the Senate.
“In this instance, the American people voted, they elected Donald Trump. A big part of the reason they elected Donald Trump is because of the Scalia vacancy,” Cruz said. “They wanted principled Constitutionalists on the court. And a big part of the reason we have a Republican majority elected in 2014, reelected in 2016, grown even larger in 2018, a major issue in each of those elections is the American people voted and said, ‘we want constitutionalist judges.’”
The passing of Ginsburg has paved the way for a bitter Supreme Court fight just months ahead of the 2020 election. Democrats have said Republicans should hold true to their decision in 2016 and wait until after the election to attempt to fill the vacancy.
Trump indicated he plans to put forward a nomination before the election, even indicating his plan to make that nominee a woman.
McConnell struck a similar chord to Cruz following the news, saying he plans to give the president’s nominee a vote on the Senate floor.
