Sen. Jeff Flake’s dramatic shift from his press release from earlier Thursday indicating he was a “yes” to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court to his warning that he would be a “no” if a floor vote on his nomination is not delayed one week to allow for an FBI investigation has uprooted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plans to quickly confirm the judge.
Flake, along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (who said she holds the same position), have the ability to kill Kavanaugh’s nomination if they remain firm. This reality has left McConnell with three basic options:
1.) Go to the floor anyway, risking defeat, in hopes that Flake and his allies are just bluffing and will come around.
2.) Give into the one-week delay, betting that an FBI investigation turns up nothing, and possibly this would not only bring some fence-sitting Republicans on board, but a few red state Democrats for bipartisan cover. It’s possible under this scenario that McConnell could set up the early procedural votes and get the Senate clock ticking while the FBI is investigating, so that the final confirmation vote only effectively gets delayed a few days.
3.) Tell President Trump that the Kavanaugh nomination has taken on too much water and that it would make sense to withdraw him and replace him with another name.
Of all the options, it seems to me like some variation of number two would be the most likely course. McConnell does not have a large enough majority to bulldoze the nomination through, so taking the first option would make defeat more likely than not. Given that McConnell probably will have the votes locked up if the next week doesn’t turn up anything, it seems like a weeklong delay is better than starting from scratch with a new nominee with the uncertainty of an election approaching, so I don’t see the third option as very likely.
