It’s legacy time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Fulfilling the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the fall election is as much about McConnell’s goal of securing conservative majority on the court for decades to come as it is about confirming President Donald Trump’s upcoming nominee. There’s no guarantee the Kentucky Republican will succeed. He is about to move ahead with a jarring and politically risky strategy to try to bend his majority in the Senate to accomplish the remarkable. If it works, he will have ushered three justices to the court in four years, a historic feat. For better or worse, this will be how McConnell’s tenure as a Senate leader will be measured. “Sen. McConnell already has played a huge role in shaping the Supreme Court for decades to come,” said Edwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkley School of Law. “A third confirmation, especially under these circumstances, would truly make this the McConnell Court for a long time to come.” The path for how, exactly, McConnell will make this happen is being set swiftly in Washington. Many expect Trump to name his nominee in a matter of days and the Senate to start the confirmation process — condensing a typically monthslong endeavor into a matter of weeks. Voting in the Senate could happen before the election or it could spill into the lame-duck period after the Nov. 3 vote. Either strategy is a political calculation for McConnell more than a substantive one. For the longest serving Republican Senate leader in history, the course ahead depends on what is best for the handful of GOP senators who face difficult reelections in November and could make or break McConnell’s slim majority. Sens. Susan Collins in Maine, Cory Gardner in Colorado and others will set the pace. Conservative voters are expected to be energized by the prospect of a right-leaning court, and McConnell must weigh whether the endangered senators risk alienating them if they shy from a confirmation vote. Or, in their swing states, would the senators up for reelection fare worse if they rushed into a vote, upsetting centrist and independent voters who prefer to stick to Senate norms? For now, McConnell is eager to push ahead, willing to leave behind those senators whose votes he can afford to lose. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, signaled hours before Ginsburg’s death that it’s too close to the election to vote on a confirmation. She and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, have been critical of Trump and could be votes against the nominee. With a narrow 53-seat majority in the 100-member Senate, McConnell can lose three senators and still rely on Vice President Mike Pence to break a tie vote. Republicans think the risks of pushing ahead are worth it. “McConnell’s got to thread the needle here, and I have no doubt he will,” said Mike Davis, a former chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee. He now runs an outside advocacy group for conservative judges and advises Republican senators. McConnell never set out to remake the Supreme Court as he has done during the Trump era. But the death of Justice Antonin Scalia hours before one of the early-state presidential debates in February 2016 put McConnell on a course that will […]

The post McConnell’s Legacy: Wielding Majority Power To Reshape Court appeared first on The Yeshiva World.