By Harper Neidig – 02/13/16 06:27 PM EST
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should not be replaced until after the presidential election.
Because McConnell sets the Senate schedule, and the upper chamber confirms Supreme Court nominations, his remarks signal the GOP’s intent to not confirm any nominee offered by President Obama.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”
Democrats have already called on the Senate to take a vote on a nominee replacing Scalia, who died Saturday in Texas.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said it would be “unprecedented” for the Senate to wait until next year to confirm a new justice.
He added that it would be a “shameful abdication” of the Senate’s responsibility.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/269389-mcconnell-dont-replace-scalia-until-after-election
O sure. All you had to do was ask.
Key word: “should”
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” he said in a statement”
The American people voted for Barack Obama. I did not vote for Mitch McConnell
fyi…. August 1960, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a resolution, S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.
On July 27, 2007, Schumer told his ACS audience:
How do we apply the lessons we learned from Roberts and Alito to be the next nominee, especially if—God forbid—there is another vacancy under this president? … [F]or the rest of this president’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito. Given the track record of this president and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings—with respect to the Supreme Court, at least—I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.
now lets see if the yellow-bellied GOP can stand its ground