On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they will actually boycott Thursday’s vote by the committee that would send Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination to the Senate for final confirmation, The Hill reported.
Schumer and the Democrats called the GOP moving ahead to confirm Barrett a “sham process” and complained the GOP should wait until after the presidential election to move forward.
They said in a statement, “Republicans have moved at breakneck speed to jam through this nominee, ignoring her troubling record and unprecedented evasions, and breaking longstanding committee rules to set tomorrow’s vote,” The Los Angeles Times noted. The statement continued, “Fearing a loss at the ballot box, Republicans are showing that they do not care about the rules or what the American people want, but are concerned only with raw political power. We will not grant this process any further legitimacy by participating in a committee markup of this nomination just twelve days before the culmination of an election that is already underway.”
The statement added, “Throughout the hearings last week, committee Democrats demonstrated the damage a Justice Barrett would do – to health care, reproductive freedoms, the ability to vote, and other core rights that Americans cherish. We will not grant this process any further legitimacy by participating in a committee markup of this nomination just twelve days before the culmination of an election that is already underway,” NPR reported.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asserted the process will go forward, stating that Barrett “deserves a vote and she will receive a vote.”
He added:
The nomination process took a dark turn in 2013 when the Democrats changed the rules of the Senate for District and Circuit court nominees requiring a simple majority vote. My Democratic colleagues chose to engage in a partisan filibuster of Justice [Neil] Gorsuch for the first time in U.S. history requiring the changing of the rules regarding Supreme Court nominations. … As to my Democratic colleagues’ refusal to attend the markup, that is a choice they are making. I believe it does a disservice to Judge Barrett who deserves a vote, up or down …
“Democrats’ boycott of the vote, which was first reported by the Huffington Post, would technically require Republicans to violate the committee’s quorum requirements, which demand that two members of the minority party be present for votes. Assuming all Republicans on the panel show up, they can easily override the requirement, either by ignoring it or by voting to change the rule,” The Los Angeles Times noted.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told a press conference that the Senate would vote Monday on confirming Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. He stated, “With regard to the Supreme Court justice, I think you’ve already written, we’ll be voting to confirm justice-to-be Barrett next Monday and I think that will be another signature accomplishment in our effort to put on the courts, the federal courts, men and women who believe in the quaint notion that maybe the job of the judge is to actually follow the law.”