Democrats say Republicans “will regret” rushing to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Monday, just days before the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the action an “inerasable stain” as the Democrats filibuster failed.
And Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, tweeted: “This is a dark day for the Senate. Republicans have defied rules & traditions in their rush to confirm Judge Barrett in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic & an election. I believe my Republican colleagues will regret the consequences of taking us down this path.”
To those warnings, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had this retort: “The reason we were able to do what we did in 2016, 2018 and 2020 is because we had the majority.” ” He was referring, of course, to the Supreme Court battles of those years.
In 2016, the GOP Senate held off confirming a Barack Obama nominee for nearly a year, refusing even to have hearings on Merrick Garland. Donald Trump’s first nominee, conservative Neil Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017. In 2018, just about a month before the mid-term elections, conservative Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed, despite assault allegations which he denied. Now, a week before the 2020 General Election, the very conservative Barrett steps onto our highest court.