GOP leaders vow to fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy this year, despite some apprehension – CNNPolitics

(CNN) Senate Republican leaders, undeterred by the scathing criticism leveled against them for blocking President Barack Obama’s election-year Supreme Court nominee in 2016, are signaling that they are prepared to confirm a nominee by President Donald Trump even if that vacancy occurred after this year’s election.

The push comes despite ample apprehension from influential Republicans that the GOP could pay a political price for treating a nominee under Trump differently than they did under Obama. It also comes as Democrats are increasingly worried about the fragile health of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 87-year-old liberal jurist who recently made public a new bout with cancer, and the possibility of other retirements.

“We will,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Republican leader, when asked if the Senate would fill a vacancy, even during the lame-duck session after the presidential election. “That would be part of this year. We would move on it.”

Thune’s comments appear to break sharply with his comments in 2016, when then-President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The American people deserve to have their voices heard on the nomination of the next Supreme Court justice, who could fundamentally alter the direction of the Supreme Court for a generation,” Thune said in a statement in March 2016. “Since the next presidential election is already underway, the next president should make this lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.”

Source: GOP leaders vow to fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy this year, despite some apprehension – CNNPolitics


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