US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he would nominate a woman to succeed late US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The president’s desire to “to move quickly” on the process, despite Democrats’ vehement opposition, is likely to dominate the campaigns — alongside other hot-button issues such as COVID-19 and the US’ ongoing racial reckoning — ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
“I think it’s going to move quickly actually,” Trump told reporters outside the White House, adding that he thought his choice would be made “next week.”
Photo: AFP
Addressing a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, later in the day, he took an impromptu poll from the crowd, asking them to cheer for either a woman or a man to be his pick.
The crowd cheered considerably louder for the former.
“That’s a very accurate poll because that’s the way I feel. It will be a woman. A very talented, very brilliant woman, who I haven’t chosen yet — but we have numerous women on the list,” Trump said.
The 87-year-old Ginsburg, immensely popular among Democrats, died on Friday after a long battle with cancer.
Her death, just weeks before the presidential election, offers Republicans a chance to lock in a conservative majority for decades to come, on a court where justices are appointed for life.
The stakes are high as the decision could affect such weighty issues as abortion, healthcare, gun control and LGBT rights.
They are pushed even higher in a bitter election year when the justices can play a decisive role in legal wrangling over a contested result — such as when they ruled in former US president George W. Bush’s favor to end the 2000 election debacle.
Trump has already named two justices during his term as president, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, giving conservatives a 5-4 majority before Ginsburg’s death, although that does not guarantee rulings in Trump’s favor; there have been several recent examples of conservatives siding with their progressive colleagues.
Trump, who is lagging in the polls behind former US vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, has another powerful incentive to move ahead: providing a jolt of enthusiasm among his anti-abortion and evangelical supporters.
However, with 45 days to go before the election and early voting already begun in some states, galvanized Democrats are pushing back furiously.
Biden said on Friday that “the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”
While Democrats’ options seem limited, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday told party members that if Republicans press ahead, then “nothing is off the table,” according to media reports.
“This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” Schumer said on Friday, carefully echoing the words of US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2016 when he blocked Obama nominee Merrick Garland.
Republicans in theory have the Senate votes to push through a Trump nominee, but could be blocked by only a handful of defections.
US Senator Susan Collins became the first Republican to break ranks when she on Saturday announced that she would not support a vote on any Trump nominee before the election.
The Maine lawmaker is among a handful of moderate Republican senators — including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — who have already expressed doubts about a rushed vote.
“I totally disagree with her,” Trump said of Collins’ stance, referring to his 2016 election in adding that “we have an obligation as the winners to pick who we want.”
One prominent Democratic member of the US Senate Judiciary Committee who will oversee the confirmation hearings, is none other than US Senator Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate.
Trump has already named scores of conservatives as federal judges, and Democrats fear a deep and lasting shift in balance at the Supreme Court.
“If he’s allowed to put more conservatives in, this is going to be disastrous for the next 40 to 50 years,” Gloria Browne-Marshall, a civil rights attorney, said on CNN.
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