NASHVILLE – All five Republican U.S. senators from Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama say they support President Donald Trump’s plan to push through a GOP replacement for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Democratic appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg this year.
While Democrats are incensed over Trump’s decision, citing the 2016 GOP-led Senate’s refusal to act on then-President Barack Obama’s nomination of Democrat Merrick Garland to the nation’s highest court, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said in a statement Sunday that “no one should be surprised that a Republican Senate majority would vote on a Republican President’s Supreme Court nomination, even during a presidential election year.”
The U.S. Constitution “gives senators the power to do it,” said Alexander, who in 2016 opposed Garland’s confirmation coming up for a vote.
“The voters who elected them expect it. Going back to George Washington, the Senate has confirmed many nominees to the Supreme Court during a presidential election year. It has refused to confirm several when the President and Senate majority were of different parties.”
Alexander, a moderate who leaves office in January, said Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “is only doing what Democrat leaders have said they would do if the shoe were on the other foot.”