Mitch McConnell Vows To Fill Ginsburg’s Seat With Trump Nominee

An hour after Ruth Bather Ginsburg’s death on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he will hold a vote on Monday to vote on Trump’s nominee to fill the vacancy left by Ginsburg.

The unnamed nominee has not been named yet. But McConnell says that they “will receive a vote on the floor.”

The nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice in an election year is very important. The Supreme court already has a 5-4 majority of Republican justices. A 6-3 Republican majority could drastically change the shape of the law for social issues for many years.

“In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year,” McConnell said.

“By contrast, Americans re-elected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise. President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” McConnell added.

McConnell’s stance on nominating a new justice this election cycle is very hypocritical. Last election cycle, McConnell refused to hold hearings for Obama’s nomination for Supreme Court Justice after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. However, since Trump has been in office, there has been no resistance from McConnell in nominating justices.

This news comes after reports that Ginsburg told her family before she died that it was her “fervent wish” to not have any justices appointed before the upcoming election.