Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said Tuesday he’ll support holding a vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee this year, all but assuring Republicans can push forward with filling the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.
“My decision regarding a Supreme Court nomination is not the result of a subjective test of ‘fairness’ which, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,” Romney said in a statement. “It is based on the immutable fairness of following the law, which in this case is the Constitution and precedent.”
“The Constitution gives the President the power to nominate and the Senate the authority to provide advice and consent on Supreme Court nominees,” the Utah Republican said in a statement. “Accordingly, I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the President’s nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications.”
Republicans want to confirm the next justice to the High Court before the November election, which is just 6 weeks away. The Senate is composed of 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. In the event of a tie, Vice President Mike Pence will step in to break the tie. The Democrats are powerless to stop a nomination from going forward, and so far there are only two spineless pipsqueaks among the Republicans, Susan Collins (R-MA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), which means Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was right when he recently said, “We’ve got the votes to confirm Justice Ginsburg’s replacement before the election.” Romney confirming he will not try to block a nomination pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of obstructing from whiny Democrats like Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer who said the Republicans have no right to do it.
“By all rights, by every modicum of decency and honor, Leader [Mitch] McConnell and the Republican Senate majority have no right to fill it, no right,” Schumer said.
With Collins and Murkowski going on the record that they are against a vote, that doesn’t mean they will vote no for the nominee.
Though Romney said he supports a nomination process to move forward, he had to get in there that this doesn’t mean that he’ll vote for the nominee.
“What I intend to do is to proceed with the consideration process, and if a nominee actually reaches the floor, then I will vote based upon the qualifications of that nominee,” he told reporters.
Trump has said that he will announce his pick to replace Justice Ginsburg on Saturday.
The court vacancy has increased the stakes in an already tense election. While the GOP hopes the prospect of getting a 5-4 conservative majority on the court (Chief Justice Roberts has gone over to the dark side with the liberals) will excite their conservative base, Democrats have denounced the push to fill the seat before the end of Trump’s first term hoping they take back a majority in the Senate.
Romney’s statement followed Senator Cory Gardner’s (R-CO) announcement on Monday night that he’ll vote to confirm Trump’s nominee, should he or she meet the the proper criteria.
“I have and will continue to support judicial nominees who will protect our Constitution, not legislate from the bench, and uphold the law,” Gardner said in a statement. “Should a qualified nominee who meets this criteria be put forward, I will vote to confirm”:
If you think what the Democrats did to now Justice Brett Kavanaugh was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet! They are going to go after whoever Trump nominates, and since the president has said that he will nominate a woman, I think it will be another low point for the Senate Judiciary Committee, because we’re going to see elected Democrat senators say the most vile things, make the most outrageous accusations against her, and America will get to see just how despicable the Democrats have really become. For them, another Trump pick is the biggest political loss that could ever happen to them, because the Supreme Court would go back to how our Founding Fathers viewed it should be where rulings are based not on what Twitter leftists want, but based on the standards found in the US Constitution.
Rich is a conservative, syndicated opinion writer and owner of MAGA-Chat.com. He writes about politics, culture, liberty, and faith.
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