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| President Barack Obama meets with, from left, the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking member Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nev., Vice President Joe Biden, the president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 1, 2016, to discuss the vacancy in the Supreme Court. Senate Republican leaders are vowing to block the president's Supreme Court nominee, no matter who it is, with the hope of keeping the seat open for a Republican president to fill next year |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- After an Oval Office sit-down on Tuesday did nothing to
move Republican Senate leaders off their hard line against a Supreme
Court nomination, Democrats pulled out another weapon in the heated
election-year fight: Donald Trump.
In a White
House meeting that lasted less than an hour, Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa, told President Barack Obama that any confirmation process
during a presidential campaign would politicize the court. They offered
up no potential candidates that would win their backing and no route to
filling the seat.
"This vacancy will not be filled this year," McConnell told reporters after the meeting.
Democrats
accused Republicans of trying to hold the seat open so that a
Republican president can fill it. That president could be Trump, they
noted, hoping to needle a GOP establishment uncomfortable with the
prospects of Trump presidency.
The meeting -
which also included Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking Democrat on the
judiciary committee - was the first time the leaders have met since
Justice Antonin Scalia's death last month set off a high-stakes clash
over the Supreme Court vacancy.
While the men
huddled at the White House, voters in 12 states were preparing to weigh
in on a presidential contest that has tanked Obama's chances of filling
the seat - but also given Democrats a new line of attack. As they
emerged from the meeting, they quickly linked the GOP strategy to the
Republican front-runner poised to pick up significant momentum Tuesday
night.
"All we want them to do is fulfill
their Constitutional duty and do their job, and at this stage, they
decided not to do that," Reid said. "They think that they can wait and
see what President Trump will do, I guess."
Reid's
comments were aimed at riling up Democrats, as well as moderate and
establishment Republicans who cringe at the thought of the unpredictable
celebrity candidate controlling the future of the court. It was an
early sign that with formalities - such as awkward White House meetings -
dispensed with, the fight over the court was largely a battle for
public opinion.
"Whether everybody in the
meeting today wanted to admit it, we all know that considering a
nomination in the middle of a heated presidential campaign is bad for
the nominee, bad for the court, bad for the process, and ultimately bad
for the nation," Grassley said in his statement about the meeting. "It's
time for the people to voice their opinion about the role of the
Supreme Court in our constitutional system of government."
At
another time, the gathering might have been a nod to the tradition of
at least limited cooperation in naming and confirming justices to the
nation's highest court. The president might have floated potential
candidates; Senate opposition might have come armed with their own
preferred names.
On Tuesday, neither side came with much more than talking points.
Obama
laid out his thinking on his nominee search and offered to consider any
suggestions for candidates, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Republicans did not offer any, Reid said, who added that with little
else to discuss the leaders chatted about basketball.
Republicans
maintain the choice of nominee is irrelevant; their objection is to the
timing. At a private meeting of House Republicans before heading to the
White House, McConnell promised not to budge from that stance, even as
the campaign heats up.
Several of those in
attendance said he used the phrase "Read my lips," made famous by
President George H.W. Bush when he promised during his 1988 campaign to
not raise taxes - a promise he later abandoned under Democratic
pressure.
While the standoff continues, the
president has been reading through files on potential nominees and
considering his options. The White House says the president has not
settled on a short list and could still add names to the mix.
For
now, the White House is focused on demonstrating that it is making an
effort to consult with the Senate - even if there's not much give and
take.
"The president certainly has the
constitutional authority to nominate a justice in an election year, and
he intends to use it," Grassley wrote in an op-ed in the Des Moines
Register published Tuesday. "In the Senate, we have the equal
constitutional authority to consent or withhold consent."
