Grassley: No hearings for anyone Obama nominates for Supreme Court

McConnell reaffirmed in his Tuesday remarks how a Supreme Court nominee from Obama would be treated differently.

“To leave the seat vacant at this critical moment in American history is a little bit like saying, ‘God forbid something happens to the president and the vice president, we’re not going to fill the presidency for another year and a half, ‘” he said. “I don’t see the point in going through the motions and creating a misleading impression”.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said today he wouldn’t even speak to a Supreme Court nominee if he or she showed up at his office. His selection could tip the nine-member court to the left for the first time in decades.

Senate opposition has not deterred the president, who intends to send a nomination to the Senate in the coming weeks.

“We don’t have a strategy or plan in response to this”, Durbin told reporters.

Democrats have been aggressively lobbying McConnell and other Republicans to change their mind, but McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley, an Iowa senator, are budging. But the real problem, as I see it, is a lack of national education regarding our Constitution and Bill of Rights. And 62 percent of respondents in a Fox News poll said current leaders should “take action to fill the vacancy now”, compared to 34 percent who felt the president “shouldn’t get to nominate someone for a lifetime appointment … this late in his term”. They are questioning the democratic legitimacy of the president and doubting the ability of the democratic system to withstand the pressures of both a presidential election and hearings on a Supreme Court nominee. Republicans are hoping that by holding out a year, a GOP president and Senate in 2017 could nominate and confirm another conservative justice to replace Scalia.

He said Democrats never did what the Republicans are doing, noting that he and other Democrats declined to filibuster Justice Clarence Thomas and allowed Alito on the court although a number of them opposed him.

Democrats threw up their arms in protest, accusing the GOP of being obstructionist, breaking with precedent and denying the president his constitutional rights. “Republicans should think long and hard about this simple fact: If they follow the course set out by the Republican Leader, every one of them will be as responsible as Trump and Cruz for the debasement of their own Republican Party”.

Congressional Republicans have taken obstruction to a new level. In any case, there are rules, written and unwritten, that, to me, say clearly that the president should nominate a successor to the vacancy that now exists, most unfortunately, on the Court. “In 2010, right after the election or right during the election, he said, ‘My number-one job is to defeat Barack Obama, ‘ without even knowing what Barack Obama was going to propose”. Clips of the 1992 speech began airing Monday. Biden has argued that the GOP is taking his statement out of context. “This decision ought to be made by the next president”, McConnell said. It is shocking and disgusting how little respect they have for our nation, our Constitution and our democratic process.

“No hearing, no vote”, said Sen. “The credibility of the court will be enhanced by that, too”. Hearings would be “a waste of time, ” added Sen.