With few options, Sen. Blumenthal vows to ‘do everything possible’ to stop a Trump Supreme Court nominee before the election

Facing long odds and with few options, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he and other Democrats would still attempt “everything possible” to block the Senate from confirming a new Supreme Court justice before the election and inauguration of the next president.

Blumenthal plans to encourage Americans to call their senators and will rely upon available “procedural tools” to block a vote. Beyond subjecting the nominee to an extensive background check and hearing process, he didn’t specify what procedures Democratics in the Senate would employ.

“Unequivocally and unquestionably, the president should not ask for a vote before the election and inaugural, so that the American people can have a say and a voice in this choice,” Blumenthal said.

President Donald Trump, who is moving quickly to nominate a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said he has five names on a shortlist of potential nominees. He said he will make an announcement on Friday or Saturday, after memorial services for Justice Ginsburg, who died last Friday evening.

“There’s a difference when you have the Senate, when you have the vote, you can sort of do what you want as long as you have it,” Trump told the press on Monday. “So now we have the presidency, and we have the Senate.”

Democrats, Blumenthal said, have already been joined by a “nucleus of a potential Republican resistance” in the form of Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, both of whom have signaled they do not support a vote before the election. To block a nomination, two additional Republican senators would have to join Collins and Murkowski.

“We’re going to await the president’s nominee, But no matter who it is, this treacherous rush to judgment holds a dagger to the heart of our democracy,” Blumenthal said. "The president is, in effect, threatening to break apart the Senate and the nation when he is forcing my colleagues to break their word.”

Blumenthal, a member of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said it would be “literally the height of hypocrisy” for Republicans to force a vote before the election and inauguration. He called out Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Republicans Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, all of whom have previously pledged they would not move to confirm a justice before the election. Both McConnell and Graham now say they favor a vote to confirm a Trump nominee.

“Healthcare is in the balance,” Blumenthal said. “Literally days after the election, the administration will seek to decimate the Affordable Care Act and stop protection for people who have pre-existing conditions. ... On voting rights, civil rights, marriage equality, gun violence prevention, reproductive rights, as well as health care, there will be real consequences in real lives.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said any nomination should be delayed until the next president is elected.

David A. Yalof, professor and head of the Department of Political Science at UConn, said there’s very little Democrats can do to block a vote.

“There’s a few days that are necessary for a full background check, but they don’t need to take that long with that,” Yalof said. “There are no longer cloture votes, because the Republicans took that away. When Gorsuch was nominated in early 2017, they ended the filibuster rule for the nominee. There’s no requirement that they go through a full committee hearing, although they probably will go through a set of truncated committee hearings.”

Democrats, Yalof said, can only hope to ramp up public opinion, to endanger Republican senators who are running close reelection contests and to get two of them--Cory Gardner, for example, a Republican who is running in a difficult reelection contest in Colorado--to join Murkowski and Collins.

Michael Hamad can be reached at mhamad@courant.com.

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