A key Republican senator has come out in favor of holding a vote on President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be announced Supreme Court nominee, but he didn’t say if he’d support the president’s choice.
On Tuesday, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said if Trump’s nominee — who will be announced Saturday — makes it to the Senate floor, “I intend to vote on their qualifications.”
Romney’s support all but ensures Trump has the backing needed to push the nomination over Democratic objections that it’s too close to the November election.
Romney’s announcement is the latest battle over whether to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday night at age 87 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, before or after Election Day.
Late Monday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham told Fox News “the nominee is going to be supported by every Republican in the Judiciary Committee. We’ve got the votes to confirm the justice on the floor of the Senate before the election, and that’s what’s coming.”
According to The Associated Press, Trump met with Judge Amy Coney Barrett at the White House on Monday and told reporters he would interview other candidates and might meet with Judge Barbara Lagoa when he travels to Florida later this week.
Conversations in the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office have been increasingly focused on Barrett and Lagoa, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber and can confirm a justice by a simple majority.
Trump has said he would choose a woman as his next Supreme Court justice, as did Democrat White House nominee Joe Biden earlier this year in a debate.
The president also indicated that Allison Jones Rushing, a 38-year-old appellate judge from North Carolina, is on his short list. His team is also actively considering Kate Todd, the White House deputy counsel who has never been a judge but was a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.
Biden and Democrats are protesting the Republicans' effort to replace Ginsburg, saying voters should speak first on Election Day, and the winner of the White House should fill the vacancy.
Democrats are accusing Republicans of hypocrisy after McConnell, in 2016, led the GOP in refusing to vote on a nominee of President Barack Obama in February 2016, long before that year’s election. Biden is appealing to GOP senators to “uphold your constitutional duty, your conscience” and wait until after the election.
Ginsburg will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol this week, the first woman ever accorded that honor. First, her casket is to be on view midweek on the steps of the Supreme Court building.
With just over a month before the election, McConnell said the Senate has “more than sufficient time.”
No nominee has won confirmation so quickly since Sandra Day O’Connor — with no opposition from either party — became the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court in 1981.
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