Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is criticizing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for saying he would block a Supreme Court nomination from President Joe Biden made during the 2024 election.
“[McConnell] would change the rules a third time if he could to make sure that they get the choice on the next Supreme Court justice,” Durbin told Politico’s Burgess Everett.
He added, “He’s not much for precedent and tradition when it doesn’t serve him.”
Finally, here's Durbin on McConnell previewing a potential future SCOTUS blockade: "He would change the rules a third time if he could to make sure that they get the choice on the next Supreme Court justice. He's not much for precedent and tradition when it doesn't serve him"
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) June 14, 2021
During an interview on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show on Monday, the Kentucky senator was asked if he would block a Biden nominee to the Supreme Court in 2024 if Republicans regained the majority.
“Would the rule that you applied in 2016 to the Scalia vacancy apply in 2024 to any vacancy that occurred then?” Hewitt asked.
McConnell responded, “Well, 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.”
“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,” he added.
In 2016, McConnell blocked then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, as he argued voters should have a “voice” in the process.
However, McConnell explained that Republicans confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the midst of the 2020 presidential election cycle, “What was different in 2020 was we were of the same party as the president.”
