President Donald Trump and
Senate Republicans spent the weekend rolling out an aggressive power play to try to solidify an unassailable and generational majority on the nation’s top bench possibly even before an election that is only 43 days away.
Democrats are meanwhile mobilizing to maximize what they see as possible benefits of the nomination struggle for
Joe Biden’s campaign and to prevent the President from using the sudden confirmation fight to turn the focus away from his disastrous mismanagement of the coronavirus emergency. The confrontation is heating up with some Americans already taking part in early and absentee voting, and only a week before the first critical presidential debate between the President and the former vice president in Ohio.
The death of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday injected an extraordinary new dimension into what was already shaping up as the most contentious election in decades. Her passing also unleashed an even more divisive than normal battle for a replacement since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is
pressing ahead to confirm a pick Trump may make within days despite refusing to move on then-President Barack Obama’s nominee,
Merrick Garland, many months before the 2016 election. Back then, McConnell said voters should decide the destiny of the court in choosing a new President.
But McConnell turned his back on his own made-up rule with a Republican in the White House. This Republican hypocrisy led to an absurd spectacle on Sunday talk shows of lawmakers and officials trying to explain away their own disingenuousness. The GOP will not care, however, since this pick will likely enshrine a decades-long conservative majority with the capacity to shape vast areas of American life — from voting and gender rights to environmental regulation and big business matters. The court could also become a thorn in the side of future Democratic presidents.
Trump reveled in his opportunity to nominate his third Supreme Court Justice at a rally in North Carolina on Saturday night. “It will be a woman, a very talented, very brilliant woman,” Trump said. “I haven’t chosen yet, but we have numerous women on the list.”
Among the President’s top choices, according to
CNN reporting, are Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump previously nominated to sit on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, and Barbara Lagoa, whom he appointed to the 11th US Circuit of Appeals in 2019. Lagoa is Hispanic and from Florida and could fit well with Trump’s reelection strategy, which depends on him winning the vital swing state.
Biden seized on McConnell’s gall in an effort to make the case that Republicans who won the presidency despite losing the popular vote are embarked on an extreme power grab and must be reined in.
“Don’t go there,” Biden said Sunday, directly appealing to GOP senators. “Uphold your constitutional duty, your conscience, let the people speak. Cool the flames that have been engulfing our country. We can’t keep rewriting history.”
Two Republicans,
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and
Sen. Susan Collins, who is locked in a tight reelection fight in Maine, have already said that they oppose taking up Trump’s nomination before the election, leaving McConnell almost no margin for error if he is to fulfill Trump’s wish for a vote before the election. He can only afford to lose one more Republican senator and still confirm the pick
before November 3 with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence.
The exact dynamics inside the Senate GOP will become more clear later this week as the chamber returns to work and members gather for their policy lunch.
Worsening pandemic complicates Trump’s reelection push
Biden plans to make the Supreme Court duel into
a new platform for his assault on the President on health care, sources told CNN. The approach will allow him to also leverage criticism of Trump’s performance on the pandemic.
The Court is already scheduled to
hear oral arguments in the administration’s latest attempt…
Read More: Supreme Court fight adds stunning new twist to a crisis election