‘Oh the hypocrisy!’ cried the Democrats after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring President Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee to the floor for confirmation hearings and a vote ahead of the election. The screeching continued as swing vote after swing vote — Sens. Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley and Mitt Romney, for example — said they also supported taking a vote.
Republicans are indeed treating the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away on Friday night, far differently than they did the one left by Antonin Scalia in 2016. The GOP had control of the Senate then, too, but refused to advance President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, citing the proximity of the presidential election. What was also different then was that the executive branch and the Senate were held by different political parties. Joe Biden famously said in 1992 when George H.W. Bush was president and Democrats held the Senate that a SCOTUS nomination should be put off until after the election because a ‘divided government’ meant there was no ‘consensus’ on who to confirm. McConnell invoked this exception to the Senate’s ‘advise and consent’ role as the ‘Biden rule’ in 2016.
Whether you believe McConnell was really acting out of a regard for precedent or just protecting his party’s interest, well, that’s politics, baby. You do things that help your coalition and avoid things that hurt them. Meanwhile, the Democrats ought to be careful accusing Republicans of hypocrisy, because the charge can just as easily be turned back on them. Some of the loudest voices in the Democratic party were insisting that the Senate had the obligation or duty to advance the nomination then. Now, when a conservative court majority looms, they say exactly the opposite…
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