The name of the candidate promised Saturday, September 19 by Donald Trump to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court, who died the day before, an icon of feminist struggles, is not yet known, but the battle for confirmation by the United States Senate United is already engaged. As after the brutal death of the conservative judge Antonin Scalia, on February 13, 2016, the leader of the Republican majority immediately cut his cards by affirming that ” President Trump’s candidate will be entitled to a vote in the United States Senate “. Four years ago, the same Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) blocked the choice of Democratic President Barack Obama, assuring that the latter had lost all legitimacy eleven months after his departure from the White House.
The calculation of the leader of the Republican majority, master of the agenda of the Upper Assembly, is not in doubt. He is convinced that he can rally behind him the majority who acquitted Donald Trump on February 5, after his indictment by the House of Representatives. At the time, defections were limited to Mitt Romney (Utah), on only one of the two articles adopted by the House of Representatives.
The equation is however much more complex than at the start of the year, for questions of electoral fortune as well as of calendar. With only three votes in advance, the Republican majority remains fragile. Mitch McConnell is betting on pressure from the conservative base, on a subject that could have repercussions on the right to abortion, an essential marker of the “cultural war” between the two major American parties. The Conservative camp can lose three votes and still achieve its goals thanks to the vote of Vice President Mike Pence, who is also the Speaker of the Senate.
Puzzle calendar
The most closely watched names are the same as in February: they are those of Senators Susan Collins (Maine), whose re-election in November is not guaranteed, Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and therefore Mitt Romney. The first two, rather centrist, undoubtedly do not wish to be associated with a limitation of the right to abortion. Susan Collins was the first, after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to plead on Saturday for the nomination to be made by the president-elect on November 3. Lisa Murkowski went even further by assuring that she will not support ” the appointment of a Supreme Court judge so close to the election “.
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