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Political Brawl Erupts Over US Supreme Court Vacancy

Michael Bowman

   Battle lines were drawn across America's political landscape Saturday
   over the replacement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
   whose death Friday silenced the court's best-known liberal voice and
   raised the possibility of a 6-3 conservative majority on the bench.

   The vacancy came weeks before the November 3 general election that will
   decide whether President Donald Trump gets a second term in office as
   well as which party will control the chambers of Congress. How and when
   the vacancy is filled will have immediate political impact and could
   leave a permanent imprint on how the Senate functions and America is
   governed.

   Conservatives, eager at the prospect of a third Trump-nominated high
   court justice, cheered Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch
   McConnell's pledge late Friday that Trump's eventual pick "will receive
   a vote on the floor of the United States Senate." He did not offer a
   timetable.

   'They should not falter'

   "President Trump and Senate Republicans have worked hard to overturn
   decades of liberal activism in our court system and they should not
   falter now," Washington-based Heritage Foundation's political arm,
   Heritage Action, said in a statement. "Republicans must exercise the
   power of confirmation that voters have entrusted in them[.]"

   Liberal groups and Democrats, meanwhile, girded for battle.

   "I've never seen political hypocrisy at this level [magnitude],"
   veteran Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said on NPR, noting
   that in 2016 McConnell refused to allow consideration of former
   President Barack Obama's final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland,
   arguing that high court vacancies should be left unfilled during an
   election year so the American people can weigh in on the choice.

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