The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => SCOTUS News => Topic started by: Elderberry on February 15, 2020, 02:13:33 pm
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USA Today by Richard Wolf 2/13/2020
A legal and political earthquake hit the nation's capital precisely four years ago when Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died on a hunting trip in Texas. President Barack Obama was poised to nominate Scalia's successor and give the court its first liberal majority in decades.
It didn't happen, of course.
Within hours of Scalia's death on Feb. 13, 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed to keep the seat open until the presidential election in November. He made good on that pledge, and the vacancy remained for 14 months, until President Donald Trump filled it with Scalia acolyte Neil Gorsuch.
Fast-forward to 2020.
If a vacancy were to occur this presidential election year – with the staying power of 86-year-old Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a four-time cancer survivor, a perpetual subject of speculation – Democrats and liberals will say it should remain open through the November election.
"It’s going to be very hard for Republicans to argue that it’s appropriate to consider a Trump nominee in 2020 with a straight face," says Brian Fallon, executive director of the liberal advocacy group Demand Justice. "We’ll be ever closer to the election."
More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/13/supreme-court-battle-2020-democrats-gop-fighting-2016/4713579002/ (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/13/supreme-court-battle-2020-democrats-gop-fighting-2016/4713579002/)