A solid majority of Americans across the political spectrum support holding hearings for Supreme Court nominees during a presidential year, according to a poll conducted just a few days ago.
A new Marquette Law School national survey found that solid majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents indicated that if a seat was vacated during an election year that hearings should take place.
“In this poll, conducted in the days before Ginsburg’s death, a substantial majority of respondents of both parties say that if a vacancy occurred during the 2020 election year, the Senate should hold hearings on a nominee, with 67 percent saying hearings should be held and 32 percent saying they should not be held,” Marquette Law School said. “Views on holding hearings do not vary much by partisanship.”
The poll found that 68 percent of Republicans, 71 percent of Independents, and 63 percent of Democrats indicated that there should be hearings held if a seat became vacated during a presidential election year.
This is bad news for Democrats as they desperately try to stop President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) from filling the seat vacated by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week at 87 years old. Democrats and leftists in the media have responded to the vacancy by threatening acts of violence and even threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the nation’s highest court by packing the court with judges that suit their ideology.
Ginsburg allegedly told her granddaughter that her dying wish was that she would “not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
However, Ginsburg said in 2016 — when Democrats were trying to fill a seat during an election year — that only having eight justices on the court was “not a good number.”
“That means no opinions and no precedential value; an equal division is essentially the same as a denial of review,” Ginsburg said on the issue of the Supreme Court only having eight justices. “Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.”
Trump gave a classy statement upon learning about Ginsburg’s passing as he spoke to a group of reporters with Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” playing in the background.
“She just died? Wow,” Trump said. “I didn’t know that. You’re telling me now for the first time. She led an amazing life. What else can you say?”
“She was an amazing woman. Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life,” Trump continued. “I’m saddened to hear that.”
Trump, caught off guard by news of Ginsburg’s death, says he was ‘saddened’ https://t.co/xKHVByOzl4 pic.twitter.com/pcunzNe4Vv
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) September 19, 2020
“Trump’s comments come after Democrat Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) completely skipped over honoring Ginsburg in his initial statement following her death, and instead jumped straight into politics,” The Daily Wire reported. “In his first tweet on Ginsburg’s passing, Schumer wrote: ‘The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.'”