Romney, GOP senators’ support for Supreme Court vote opens lane for confirmation, but obstacles remain
“This legislative process and the confirmation process, it’s adverbial. It’s something that unfolds. And that means it changes as people act and react to one another,” R Street Institute senior fellow for governance James Wallner told Fox News. Wallner is a veteran Senate staffer who’s served in various roles working for Sens. Toomey and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Wallner added: “I think it all depends on if the Democrats are willing to use the different procedural tools they have at their disposal as leverage to try to somehow change the narrative.”
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Wallner also mentioned an option for Schumer could be pressing a vote “to discharge the Judiciary Committee of further consideration of this nominee” immediately after the nominee gets to the Senate. That would essentially mean that the Senate would vote on whether to skip the Judiciary Committee review process and immediately vote to confirm the nominee.
“Those votes are interesting because all of a sudden you have Schumer saying, ‘This is a charade. Republicans, let’s call it for what it is,” Wallner said. “It puts a lot of pressure on people like [Cory] Gardner and Romney. But also people like [Chuck] Grassley… All of a sudden, you’ve got a lot of Republicans joining Democrats voting no on what is essentially a symbolic vote that says we should confirm this justice immediately, then that changes the narrative.”
“Bottom line… Democrats can force votes if they want to. And votes focus attention. They invite outside involvement. They really channel pressure toward certain senators and ultimately change the dynamic,” Wallner said. “Even if they call your bluff, then you have a month to talk about COVID again.”
But no matter what roadblocks Schumer and Democrats throw up or pitfalls they try to get Trump’s eventual nominee to fall victim to, it takes a simple majority in the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice. And as things stand right now Republicans appear to have enough senators willing to consider a Trump nominee.
