Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Monday that Republicans, if they win back control of the chamber, wouldn’t advance a Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024, the year of the next presidential election.
“I think it’s highly unlikely — in fact, no, I don’t think either party, if it were different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election,” McConnell told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
McConnell was asked if a GOP-controlled Senate would take the same tack in 2024 that it did in 2016, when they refused to give Merrick Garland, Obama’s final Supreme Court pick, a hearing or a vote on his nomination to fill the vacancy created by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Republicans subsequently confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, then-President Trump‘s third Supreme Court nominee, in 2020, locking in a 6-3 conservative majority. The move, which sparked howls from Democrats, set a new record for how closely before a presidential election a Senate had confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.
McConnell and Republicans have defended their strategy by noting that in 2016 there was a split in what party controlled the Senate and the White House, compared to in 2020 when they were both controlled by Republicans.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}
> “defended their strategy by noting”
Seems to me it was payback against the Democrats who (when they had a chance) had previously blocked just about anyone and everyone nominated by a Republican President. And the Republicans did NOT use a “nuclear option” to force the installation of their Republican candidate. Instead, when it was their turn, it was the Democrats who , in 2013 and on, used the “nuclear option” to install their Democrat candidate.