Senate Republicans Tuesday appeared to firmly close the door on the possibility of taking up a Supreme Court nominee this year, all but ending President Obama’s chances of replacing the late Antonin Scalia and igniting a war with Democrats.
“It’s going to get rough around here,” Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., warned after Democrats held their weekly closed-door lunch.
Democrats plan an “in your face” approach to fighting the GOP’s decision, starting with an invitation to the nominee to come to the U.S. Capitol for interviews with Democratic senators. It’s a tradition that Republicans have no plans to follow when it comes to Obama’s pick for the high court, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed Tuesday.
“And every time that nominee comes to the Capitol I’m going to watch just to see if Sen. McConnell and Republicans run for cover for fear they are going to get photographs taken with the nominee that they rejected without even meeting,” Durbin promised.
McConnell, R-Ky., who was dining privately with rank-and-file Republicans in a nearby room, emerged Tuesday to confidently declare the Senate would neither hold hearings on Obama’s nominee, nor hold a confirmation vote.
“I can now confidently say that the view now shared virtually by everybody in my conference is that the nomination should be made by the president the people elect in the election that is underway right now,” McConnell said. “This vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck president.”
McConnell’s announcement followed a private meeting held earlier Tuesday by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is the panel responsible for vetting judicial nominees.
“This committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after our next president is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a letter sent Tuesday to McConnell.
The move has enraged Democrats but left them with little recourse other than to hammer the GOP with criticism in Senate floor speeches and at press conferences. Top Senate Democrats say they plan to ensure the GOP pays a price for blocking a nominee, but won’t say how they plan to extract it.
Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Democrats will not protest the stalled nomination by blocking, or filibustering, the appropriations legislation Senate lawmakers had pledged to pass this year.
“I’m not going to turn into the obstruct conference,” Reid said. “We have a lot of work to do. We are going to proceed.”
Instead, Reid said he believes the public will force McConnell to back down and hold hearings.
“He hasn’t seen the pressure that is going to build and it’s going to build in all the facets of the political constituencies here in this country,” Reid said.
Obama is reviewing a “short list” of nominees, said Durbin, who spoke to the president days ago. “I’m sure he is going to send a quality nominee to use again and I’m anxious to meet that person.”
