Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham laid out a swift timeline on Sunday for confirming President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court docket
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham laid out a swift timeline on Sunday for confirming President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court docket nominee, Choose Amy Coney Barrett, telling Fox Information his committee will approve Barrett by October 22. That would tee up her nomination for a full Senate vote earlier than the top of the month.
Graham’s schedule is placing the Senate on observe for what might be one of many quickest Supreme Court docket justice confirmations in trendy American historical past, and there’s not a lot that Democrats can do about it.
Graham informed Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo that the affirmation course of would start October 12. A day of introduction could be adopted by two days of questioning, and a evaluate of the committee’s suggestion would start October 15, he mentioned.
“We’ll report her nomination out of the committee on October 22,” Graham mentioned. “Then it is going to be as much as [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell as to what to do with the nomination.”
If Graham is ready to keep on that schedule, McConnell can have the choice to carry Barrett’s affirmation vote earlier than Election Day — or through the lame-duck session after the elections.
As Vox’s Andrew Prokop has defined, this may be an expedited course of, however it could be totally inside the guidelines:
In current many years, the Supreme Court docket affirmation course of — from nomination to the ultimate vote — has lasted two to a few months. Usually, this time is taken up by vetting of the nominee’s historical past, writings, and profession, after which hearings within the Senate Judiciary Committee (which may final a number of days), earlier than Senate leaders try to line up adequate help for a flooring vote.
However there’s no motive apart from decorum that every one this has to take a lot time. If Republican senators are unconcerned in regards to the appearances of an unseemly rush to a vote, they will actually maintain a faster vote ought to they so need.
The velocity of the method Graham outlined has rankled Democrats and defenders of deliberative propriety within the Senate as a result of it implies the end result of the committee course of is preordained — and has led to Democratic concern that Barrett is not going to be vetted correctly within the rush to verify her.
The proximity of the vote to Election Day can also be uncommon. No Supreme Court docket nominee has been confirmed after July throughout a presidential election 12 months earlier than. Democratic lawmakers have criticized McConnell for selecting to carry a affirmation so near an election, notably after he blocked former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court docket nominee in March 2016, arguing {that a} president shouldn’t nominate a brand new justice inside a number of hundred days of a presidential election.
Democrats have restricted instruments at their disposal for stopping the affirmation course of
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) mentioned Sunday on ABC’s This Week that Democrats have some procedural weapons with which they will decelerate the method, however that their arsenal isn’t highly effective sufficient to derail the nomination course of altogether.
“We are able to sluggish it down maybe a matter of hours, perhaps days on the most, however we are able to’t cease the end result,” the senator mentioned.
Durbin added he didn’t see the procedural protest concepts offered by a former Senate aide within the New York Occasions as sturdy sufficient to considerably postpone the nomination date.
One of many concepts offered within the op-ed is that Democrats may boycott hearings. However as Prokop has identified, “Democrats have tried comparable ways with Graham’s committee up to now, and he has merely ignored the principles when they’re inconvenient.”
It’s unclear whether or not McConnell will pursue a full affirmation vote earlier than Election Day, or after it, through the lame-duck session.
Some pundits have argued that holding the vote earlier than Election Day may energize Democratic voters. Graham famous throughout his Fox interview that Ginsburg’s dying has resulted in a fundraising bonanza for Democrats — together with his rival in South Carolina, Jaime Harrison. The windfall has been so nice that Graham even twice requested viewers to donate cash to his reelection marketing campaign.
“Their base goes nuts, they’ve raised $300 million, ActBlue has, for the reason that passing of Justice Ginsburg,” he mentioned. “I’m being outraised two to 1. Each Republican operating within the Senate is being hit onerous with all of this cash.”
The concern for Republicans is that an enraged Democratic base may ship key races — together with South Carolina’s Senate race — for Democrats come Election Day.
However there are downsides to ready till after Election Day as nicely. If Democrats win again management of the Senate, then Republicans confirming a Supreme Court docket nominee throughout a lame-duck session could be perceived as flagrantly dismissing of the desire of the voters. That would improve the probability of aggressive reprisals by Democratic lawmakers, within the type of strikes like abolishing the filibuster or increasing the Supreme Court docket. (In fact, a Democratic-controlled Senate may pursue these insurance policies no matter whether or not McConnell strikes earlier than or after Election Day.)
Finally for the GOP, the upshot of Graham’s schedule — and high Democrats’ alerts that they don’t assume they will cease the affirmation — is that the Republicans have many choices as they ponder learn how to finest full a transfer that might reshape the Supreme Court docket for a era.
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