CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Just days after the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, President Trump said he’ll be nominating her replacement as soon as this week.
"We have tremendous women on the list as you know and it will be a highly qualified person and it will be a woman that we choose, and the nomination will be put forth sometime next week,” Trump said this weekend.
Once the president makes his nomination, the Senate must vote to confirm the nominee. It’s a process that experts say typically takes 80 days.
As of Monday, September 21, the November election now 42 days away.
“That wouldn’t be enough time for the process but again there’s not much that’s conventional about this process and it seems to be getting less and less conventional,” said John Szmer, an associate professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Szmer said the nomination process will be led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham, both who say they’re in support of beginning nomination hearings.
But both are now facing accusations of hypocrisy for contradicting their past positions after President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland before the 2016 election.
It was then when South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said: "If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term you can say, 'Lindsey Graham said let's let the next President whoever it might be make that nomination' and you can use my words against me and you'd be absolutely right.”
Szmer said it could have an impact on the Senate races in both North and South Carolina.
“Supreme court nominations mean more to republicans on average so you would think this would benefit republican candidates, the republican senatorial candidates and the president,” he said. “On the other hand anger motivates people to turn out to vote and Democrats will certainly try to stoke the anger of their voters to help them turn out, by saying that the process isn’t fair, that Merrick Garland never got a fair vote.”
It would take four Senate Republicans siding with Democrats to block a Trump nominee, something Szmer said won’t be likely.
So what could another Trump nomination mean for the future of the supreme court? Currently, of the eight justices serving, three have been nominated by a Democratic president, with five nominated by a Republican president.
- Clarence Thomas: Associate Justice, Bush 1991
- Stephen G. Breyer: Associate Justice, Clinton 1994
- John G. Roberts: Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, George W. Bush 2005
- Samuel A. Alito: Jr., Associate Justice, George W. Bush, 2006
- Sonia Sotomayor: Associate Justice, Obama 2009
- Elena Kagan: Associate Justice, Obama 2010
- Neil M. Gorsuch: Associate Justice, Trump 2017
- Brett M. Kavanaugh: Associate Justice – Trump 2018
If confirmed, President Trump’s newest nominee would tilt the court six to three.
“So in the next 10 years would it affect things? Not so much,” Szmer said. “But the fact that, now, it might stretch out for an additional 15, 20, 30 years of a solidly conservative court.”
So who might Trump’s nomination be? Szmer said his guess is Amy Coney Barrett.
“Somebody like Amy Coney Barrett, who’s already been confirmed not that long ago, was on the shortlist to replace Kennedy when they chose Kavanaugh,” he said. “She’s somebody that I think the party will get behind, which means you’re not going to get enough defections from the party, so if the president wants her confirmed, I think she’ll get confirmed."