We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people.”. Both parties have chipped away at the filibuster in recent years. When Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in February 2016, President Barack Obama moved to nominate Merrick Garland, an appeals court judge, to fill the seat. Earnest letters from 687 law school deans are not going to do the trick. “If a Senate majority over the course of six years steals two Supreme Court seats using completely contradictory rationales, how could we expect to trust the other side again?” he asked. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death instantly ignited a power struggle over whether President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Senate would choose her successor ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, spoke from the Senate floor Monday asking Republicans not to ram a nomination through before the election. Ocasio-Cortez said she believed that there has been “an enormous amount of law-breaking in the Trump administration,” and that the attorney general is “unfit for office” and has “pursued potentially law-breaking behavior.”, “These are procedures and decisions that are largely up to House Democratic leadership,” she said. There will always be procedural wrangling, but Democrats can't do much without help from at least a few Republicans. Senate confirms Barrett to Supreme Court, sealing a conservative majority for decades, Amy Coney Barrett to begin meeting Senate Republicans, Senate Judiciary panel staffs up for Barrett fight, Trump taps Barrett, launching brawl over Supreme Court’s future. Can Senate Democrats Run Out the Clock on Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee? There’s also nothing to stop Republicans from voting on a Supreme Court nomination after the election in a lame duck session. There is no principle here other than raw power politics. As a result, it might be possible to cut a postelection deal in which Democrats agree to keep the court at nine justices if the Republicans abandon the effort to ram through a final Trump justice. But with partisan lines already tightly drawn, it is hard to picture voters who would change their presidential allegiance based on a court fight. With the exception of Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, the other 51 GOP senators seem ready to hold the confirmation vote for Trump’s nominee. Democrats blasted the GOP for hypocrisy, pointing to President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merritt Garland to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016. Democrats could refuse unanimous consent on any and all matters, slowing the business of the Senate to a virtual halt by forcing senators to debate and vote on the most common of measures. Assume that Murkowski and hopefully Mitt Romney oppose a rump-session Trump appointee on grounds of fairness. They can confirm a … Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks to the Senate floor, Monday, Sept. 14, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Suddenly, we’re at a 50–50 Senate if Kelly wins in Arizona. With the Democrats now favored to win back the current 53-to-47 Republican Senate, the November 3 results could change everything. Pelosi, when pressed on whether she would consider an impeachment, said that the Constitution requires that Congress “use every arrow in our quiver.”, “We have a responsibility,” Pelosi said. In other words, if all 100 senators are present, it would take 51 votes for the debate to be ended and a vote on the nominee to be moved along. McConnell refused to hold a hearing for Garland because it was 10 months out from a presidential election. Democrats need four Republicans to vote with them to block a nominee. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Some question whether Democrats can block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee through a filibuster. Senate Republicans have a 53 to 47 majority, and they abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in 2017. But, to answer the question, yes, the Senate could confirm the nominee if Trump loses the election as long as they have at least 51 votes, or if it is a 50-50 tie and Pence casts the tiebreaking vote. In a New York Times podcast interview released Monday, Pelosi repeated the statement, adding, “Well, I have arrows in my quiver, in the House quiver, and one of my arrows is not to say what the arrows are.”. There will always be procedural wrangling, but Democrats can't do much without help from at least a few Republicans. In 2013, Democrats, led by Reid, used the nuclear option on all nominations except to the Supreme Court, in response to what Democrats said was an unprecedented GOP blockade of President Barack Obama's nominees to the administration and federal bench. Maybe after the election reason will prevail. We are 50-some days away from an election.”, Don’t make it complicated. The size of the court can be altered by legislation since the number of justices is not specified in the Constitution. And we know how McConnell feels about the norms of democracy when they get in the way of his assertion of power. Things really become tight for McConnell if a Democratic Senate sweep includes Mark Kelly, who is favored to defeat Arizona Senator Martha McSally. But that timetable isn't etched in marble; it’s up to GOP leadership. It appears today that he does. She is running against Mark Kelly, a Democrat. Like almost everything else about 2020, we are lost in a wilderness of crises without maps or useful precedents. But would the taciturn 78-year-old McConnell maintain his clout if he loses his Senate majority in November? Mitch McConnell will try to move quickly to confirm a nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it won't be easy. The angrier the Democrats become over McConnell’s tactics, the more plausible the threat to expand the court becomes. That’s about the only hope that political life offers on a terrible weekend in an even worse year. But McConnell blocked the Senate from voting on Garland's nomination, saying an election-year vacancy should wait until after voters decide. A President-elect Biden and an incoming Democratic Senate would equip Chuck Schumer with a powerful threat—expanding the Supreme Court. Some question whether Democrats can block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee through a filibuster. — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who already voted against Trump's most recent Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, had previously emphasized that no vacancy should be filled this close to an election. But a nine-member Supreme Court is just a norm of democracy. They should be able to delay until after the election—and if they take back the Senate in November, McConnell may not be able to get anyone confirmed. Because the 60-vote rule was eliminated, cloture, which is a call to end debate, can be invoked with only a majority of those senators present. The Senate, with the members it has today, can conduct business up until Jan. 3, when the new Congress is seated. He hasn't indicated what he would do in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy but he's on everyone's watch list for a potential defection. Republicans upped the ante in 2017 when they voted to extend that rule by ending the 60-vote rule on filibusters on Supreme Court nominees. Democrats could appeal the change to the Senate’s Parliamentarian, but that decision is subject to a vote in the full Senate that can overturn it. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed during a press conference on Sunday whether she felt the House should employ impeachment tactics against the president and Attorney General William Barr. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has said her party is not without options to try to stop or slow the nomination and that Democrats have “arrows in our quiver” yet to be deployed. Of course, nothing is certain. Can Democrats do anything about the nomination before a vote in the Senate to confirm Trump’s choice? While this seems like a way to stop the nomination’s progress, Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, can get around that requirement by changing the quorum rule, ignoring the requirement. The real deadline may be when the next Senate convenes on Jan. 3, 2021. If Kelly is elected, the balance of power in this Senate would shift to 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats. Retiring GOP Senators Lamar Alexander and Pat Roberts, who care about the institution, may not want to cast a final vote that would bring on a judicial apocalypse. log in to manage your profile and account. Even the eventual Senate hearings, with their meticulously framed legal questions, are apt to have minimal impact, aside from giving Kamala Harris time in the spotlight. Replacing Ginsburg with a conservative would shift the balance of the court for a generation and Democrats are already fighting back. House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, D-New York, went a bit further than Pelosi, saying that if Trump’s nomination is pushed through, retaliation will come after the election when, assuming Democrats hold on to the House and possibly win both the Senate and the presidency, they put into motion a plan to increase the number of justices on the court. That happens under something called unanimous consent. Speculation in the first hours after Ginsburg’s death as to whether Trump would fill the seat in the last weeks of his first term or whether it would be held open until after the Nov. 3 general election was quelled when both Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, revealed that the process would happen before the election. Already, Schumer told his Democratic colleagues in a leaked Saturday conference call, “If Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year. Alexander, however, said Sept. 20 that he thought a nomination should move forward. — Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has broken with his party on impeachment and been unafraid to stand in Trump’s way at crucial moments in his presidency when they disagree. “We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. What can a political party do to block a Supreme Court nominee? Does McConnell have the majority vote needed to confirm Trump’s nominee? That argument was framed by an independent Senate Republican, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, in an interview hours before Ginsburg died. The announcement will come a week and a day after Ginsburg’s death at age 87 from pancreatic cancer. That would narrow the window for Republicans to approve a nominee during the Senate's lame duck session. Democrats in 2013 voted to get rid of rule that required 60 votes to end a filibuster on executive branch nominations and federal judicial appointments, saying that the GOP was slowing the process of confirming Obama’s judicial nominees. Democrats can raise objections about a potential nominee, raise hell in confirmation hearings and on the floor of the Senate, but ultimately, the committee and McConnell will decide when the key votes occur. A simple majority is all it takes under current Senate rules to confirm a Supreme Court nominee since McConnell eliminated the filibuster to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Because the contest is technically a special election, a Kelly win means he could be sworn in as early as the end of November. That’s got Democrats outraged and slamming McConnell for hypocrisy. Under this scenario, would likely GOP electoral casualties like Susan Collins in Maine and Colorado’s Cory Gardner stick with McConnell, even if the majority leader played a major role in costing them their seats? “How can we trust each other if, when push comes to shove, when the stakes are the highest, the other side will double-cross their own standards when it’s politically advantageous?”.
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