Ruth Bader Ginsburg death: Mitch McConnell says Senate will vote on Trump’s nominee

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that the Republican-controlled body will hold a vote to consider Donald Trump’s appointment to the US Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

“Americans reelected 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,” he said in a statement. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

The Kentucky Republican sought to block former president Barack Obama’s appointment to the nation’s high court in 2016 following the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in February of that year.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer invoked Senator McConnell’s own words in the New York Democrat’s demands that the Senate delay filling the vacancy until after the results of the 2020 election, just six weeks away. 

His response: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

It would require 51 votes to confirm a nominee.

The president recently unveiled his updated list of likely nominees, including sitting Republican senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

“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,” Senator McConnell said. “We kept our promise. Since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.”

Three Republican senators have signalled that they may not support confirming a nominee until after the results of the election – Susan Collins,  Chuck Grassley and Lisa Murkowski. A fourth Republican could block a vote.

“Fair is fair," Senator Murkowski said.

Justice Ginsburg, a mighty figure on the nation’s high court and one of only four women to have served on it, died on 18 September following a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 87.

The death of the critical liberal justice on the court leaves three liberal-leaning justices among the eight remaining justices.