Obama to meet with McConnell in Supreme Court standoff
(Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP)
No one expects a breakthrough when Pres. Barack Obama hosts Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, on Tuesday to talk about the confrontation over filling the Supreme Court seat held by the late Antonin Scalia.
McConnell said last week that he’ll repeat his objection to taking up any nominee Obama sends to the Senate, leaving the vacancy to the next president to fill. The president, meanwhile, will reiterate that nominating someone is his constitutional duty until he leaves office, and giving that person a fair hearing is the Senate’s job, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
“We’re talking about a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. The stakes are quite high,” Earnest said Monday. “The Constitution is quite clear about how we should proceed. The Constitution says that the president shall nominate someone to the Supreme Court, and that’s exactly the constitutional responsibility that the president has embraced and will fulfill.”
Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., will also take part in the meeting, which is shaping up as a standoff, not a step forward.
“I’m confident they’ll have a discussion about what the president hopes the process looks like,” Earnest said. But McConnell’s position “makes it hard for him to engage constructively.”
Republicans pressed for the meeting to take place on so-called Super Tuesday, when Americans who follow politics will likely be more focused on the presidential primaries — several sources said.
Democrats predict McConnell will cave under pressure from Senate Republicans who are up for reelection this year in states that Obama carried in 2008 or 2012 and who are feeling the heat over his refusal to hold hearings. They point to editorial boards denouncing McConnell’s position, and public opinion polls showing robust opposition to his approach. And they note that some prominent Republican figures — notably governors, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales — have broken with the Senate leader.
The White House has been working to enlist outside groups to add to the pressure.
Obama has assigned former reelection campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter to be the point person “where appropriate and where necessary, for the White House to coordinate with those outside groups,” Earnest said.
Republican congressional staffers, meanwhile, say that the White House is badly misreading their side’s political climate. Even those vulnerable Republicans need the GOP base to turn out in November, they say. And the base is in no mood for compromise with the Obama White House.
The meeting won’t really test either premise. But what will undeniably alter the debate, officials on both sides say, will be the actual selection of a nominee.
“Once that nominee has been put forward, the ball will then move squarely into Congress’ court — no pun intended,” Earnest said Monday. “And Congress will then have to determine whether or not they’re willing to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities, and ultimately this will be a choice for the Republican majority to make.”
Earnest hinted that some Republicans might find it hard to vote against Obama’s choice, pointing to “yes votes from a number of Republicans” for Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the president’s Supreme Court nominees in 2009 and 2010.
“Even though I don’t know exactly who the president’s going to choose to fill this vacancy on the Supreme Court, I’m confident the president’s going to put forward somebody who he believes can serve with honor and distinction on the Supreme Court, and therefore merit bipartisan support in the United States Senate,” Earnest said.
One aide to a vulnerable Senate Republican, who requested anonymity, jokingly suggested that there might be another, very different source of pressure as early as Tuesday night. “I’m not sure we want to be in the business of telling voters that we’d rather risk having Donald Trump nominate the next Supreme Court justice,” he said.
