Sen. Leader Mitch McConnell, a self-described “Grim Reaper” of the US Senate, said on Monday that he and his GOP colleagues would block President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024 if Republicans win back control of the upper chamber in the midterms elections.
During an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, the Senate Minority Leader 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, former President 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.
“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 Hewitt, according to The Hill.
However, confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, then-President Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee, in 2020, just days before the November election, locking in a 6-3 conservative majority.
The move set a new record for how closely before a presidential election a Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee. McConnell and his Republican allies have defended their strategy by noting that in 2016 there was a split in which party controlled the Senate and the White House, compared to in 2020, when they were both controlled by Republicans.
As noted by The Hill, “there are no vacancies on the Supreme Court, though progressives are trying to publicly pressure Justice Stephen Breyer, who is 82, to retire so that Democrats can fill his seat with someone younger while they still control the majority.”
McConnell refused to say what Republicans would do if a justice stepped down in mid-2023 and Republican-controlled the Senate.
“We’ll have to wait and see what happens,” McConnell said.
