GOP sends Biden warning shot on future Supreme Court vacancies
Senate Republicans are refusing to say if they would fill a future potential Supreme Court vacancy during
President Biden’s remaining tenure in a warning shot to the White House as the GOP aims to take back control of Congress after the midterms.
Comments from Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about how a GOP-controlled Senate would approach
Biden judicial nominees is intensifying questions about whether Republicans would refuse a high court pick from the Democratic president should the GOP control the chamber in 2023.
That notion would mark a major escalation of the long-running, and increasingly antagonistic, judicial wars that have rocked the Senate.
Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who would be majority leader again if Republicans took back the chamber, is so far refusing to tip his hand.
“I’m not going to go forward with any prediction on what our strategy might be should we become the majority,” McConnell said when asked about a potential vacancy in 2023 or 2024.
McConnell has indicated previously that it would be “highly unlikely” that Republicans would fill a Supreme Court vacancy that occurred in 2024, the next presidential election year, after refusing to give Merrick Garland, former
President Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, a hearing in 2016.
Democrats signaled that they believed McConnell would be willing to keep a seat vacant if that occurred under a Democratic president.
“It seems to me that Sen. McConnell is determined to change the composition of the court … to make it an eight member court if there’s any vacancy under a Democratic president,” said Sen.
Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat.
McConnell sparked fierce backlash, and years-long grievances, when he refused to have even a hearing for Garland a hearing, arguing that it was in line with how Supreme Court nominees have been treated during prior presidential election years when the White House and the Senate were controlled by different parties.
But Republicans would likely face intense pressure from outside groups and Democrats to take up a nomination if a Supreme Court vacancy occurred in 2023, which is not an election year.
It’s less clear if that pressure would come from within the Senate GOP caucus as several Republicans, including McConnell allies and members of the Judiciary Committee, declined to say if they would support filling a vacancy next year.
“I think we just have to see what the circumstances are,” said Sen.
John Cornyn (R-Texas), a McConnell ally.
Asked if he supported filling a Supreme Court vacancy in 2023, Sen.
Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the committee, said “I imagine this would be a moot point if we’re not in the majority.”
The question jumped back into the spotlight after Graham, during a Judiciary Committee meeting this week, warned that
Biden’s judicial nominees would get tougher scrutiny under a GOP-controlled Senate.
“What I can say with pretty great certainty is the president who ran as a moderate and who has governed as Bernie Sanders would, would have to spend the last two years of his term being a moderate,” McConnell said, referencing the liberal senator from Vermont.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said
Biden should factor in a GOP-controlled Senate when picking a nominee if Republicans win back the majority.
“I think the president needs to recognize that as a part of his calculation for qualified judges on the spectrum of their ideology,” Tillis said. “I think they should probably take that into account.”
Senate Republicans are refusing to say if they would fill a future potential Supreme Court vacancy during President Biden’s remaining tenure in a warning shot to the White House as the GOP aims to …
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But the SC is not a political institution?
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