Analysis: Mitch McConnell plays his Supreme Court card
“I think in the middle of a presidential election, if you have a Senate of the opposite party of the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled,” McConnell told Hewitt. “So I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don’t think either party if it controlled, if it were different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election.”
Asked about whether he would allow the confirmation of a justice in 2023, McConnell was, um, circumspect. “Well, we’d have to wait and see what happens,” he said.
Which, in McConnell-speak, is a “no.”
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The timing of McConnell’s decision to announce his plans about a court opening if and when he becomes Senate majority leader is, well, interesting.
McConnell’s move, like everything he does, is calculated.
First of all, it helps unite a fractious Republican base, which cares deeply about conservative jurists — and views McConnell’s blocking of Merrick Garland in 2016 as a moment of triumph.
The Point: This may all end up moot if Breyer announces at the end of this term — which will be at the end of this month — that he is retiring. But if he decides to stay on, the fight for control of the Senate next year will have epically large stakes.
