Mitch McConnell Admits He's Got Different Rules for Republican Presidents

Obama couldn't get a vote on a Supreme Court Justice in an election year, but Trump sure can.
mcconnell
Tom Williams

In 2016, when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unexpectedly died, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced that he wouldn't consider a nominee to replace him until after the presidential election. "The American people are perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let's give them a voice," he said at the time. "Let's let the American people decide." Now, with another presidential election on the horizon, McConnell is having a chuckle about his justification for blocking the vote on President Barack Obama's moderate nominee, Merrick Garland. Per CNN:

Speaking at a Paducah Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Kentucky, McConnell was asked by an attendee, "Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?" The leader took a long sip of what appeared to be iced tea before announcing with a smile, "Oh, we'd fill it," triggering loud laughter from the audience.

CNN depicts McConnell's statements on Tuesday as "a reversal," and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer mustered up all his bravado and to tweet, "Mitch McConnell is a hypocrite." But it's extremely consistent with McConnell's track record of inventing justifications for his power grabs. He had the opportunity to steal a Supreme Court seat from President Obama, and he took it. "One of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye, and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy,'" he said in a speech later that year.

A spokesman for McConnell told CNN that the difference between now and 2016 is that Republicans control both the Senate and the White House, therefore voters want Republicans to pick Supreme Court nominees. Here again is another justification that doesn't hold water. When Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia's seat, he needed 60 senators to approve the nomination. Republicans had only a slim majority with 52 senators, not enough for them to confirm a nominee with absolutely no Democratic support. Voters hadn't chosen to give the GOP a big enough majority to push through whoever they wanted. But instead of trying to win over any Democrats, McConnell changed the rules for confirmation, implementing the "nuclear option" so Republicans only needed a simple majority. The pretexts McConnell gives for breaking with long-standing norms may not ideologically consistent, but he's never veered from forcing through conservatives by any means necessary.

Belligerent stonewalling has gotten the Republicans very far in the last decade, giving them the White House, a Supreme Court majority, the Senate, and, until this year, the House—and it makes it all the more baffling that Democratic presidential candidates like Joe Biden are claiming that they could work with Congressional Republicans to get things done. Democrats' best hope for getting anything done, even if they win the presidency, is to take control of the Senate. But their prospects there look bleak as long as every Democrat with name recognition is running for president.