BURLINGTON — Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., says if Republicans in the Senate refuse to vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, they will drag the Supreme Court nominating process into the political arena and “diminish the United States’ standing in the eyes of the world.”
The U.S. federal court system is the envy of much of the world because it’s viewed from abroad as apolitical, Leahy said.
Leahy, in his position as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, finds himself in the middle of one of the most pitched Supreme Court nomination battles in recent history.
That’s because the politicization of the nominating process has already begun. The New York Times reported Thursday that powerful advocacy groups on the right and left plan to spend millions of dollars on a fight that will play out in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail.
Already Republican presidential candidates including frontrunner Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz have urged the Senate to stall the nominating process. Cruz has said he will filibuster any Obama nominee.
The impact of a vacancy on the Supreme Court for more than a year could lead to numerous four-to-four decisions and leave many issues important to Americans unresolved.
The political stakes are also high. If President Barack Obama replaces the staunchly conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal justice it could tip the scales on lightning rod issues ranging from immigration, climate change, gun rights, campaign finance, to gay rights and abortion.
Vermont’s senior senator said in an interview Thursday that it would be irresponsible for the Republican controlled Senate to leave an open seat on the high court for more than a year.
But that’s exactly what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he intends to do in a statement released just an hour after Justice Scalia’s death was confirmed on Feb. 13.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said in a statement, according to Politico.
Leahy said McConnell’s position is “baloney.” Obama has a popular mandate to govern — he won the last election with a 5 million vote plurality — and he plans to nominate a justice.
Denying the president’s nominee a vote would contravene the senators’ oath of office, he said.
Another of McConnell’s contentions — that there simply isn’t time to go through the nominating process — is “balderdash,” Leahy says.
Historically, the nominating process has taken two months, and if there is a time crunch, Leahy says McConnell should cancel some of the “vacation” time in the current Senate calendar. The Majority Leader has scheduled more recesses for the Senate this year than any time in Leahy’s more than 40 years as a senator, he said.
There are nearly a dozen instances in which a Supreme Court Justice has been confirmed in the last year of a president’s term, Leahy said, and the only time the Court has had a vacancy for such a long period was during (and because of) the Civil War.
“When Reagan was president and the Democrats controlled the Senate, they put one of his nominations through in his final year,” Leahy said.
A spokesman for Obama said Thursday that the president regrets his 2006 vote as a Senator to filibuster the nomination of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it was a “symbolic vote” to protest Alito’s rulings in lower courts.
Leahy echoed that sentiment Thursday, pointing out that Alito’s nomination was quickly brought to a vote after the filibuster.
Outside pressure will likely be acute for Senators up for election in November. The Washington Post reports that 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats are up for reelection in the fall. Republicans especially may feel pressure to line up behind McConnell, fearing a challenge from their right flank.
“If they’re afraid to vote, they shouldn’t be in the Senate,” Leahy said, noting that he is among the Democrats up for reelection. Pomfret businessman Scott Milne, a Republican who nearly unseated Gov. Peter Shumlin in 2014 has said he is considering a run against Leahy.
Leahy, a former prosecutor, said that ultimately it comes down to the old adage: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
