On Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) gave ABC’s George Stephanopoulos a brief history lesson about Supreme Court vacancies in wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
The President and GOP have already signaled that they’ll be ready as early as next week to start the process of filling the high court vacancy with less than 50 days before the 2020 election. Democrats, however, are threatening repercussions if such actions are taken in an election year, arguing that winner of the 2020 presidential race should be the one who gets to decide on a Supreme Court nominee.
With an intense political battle heating up, Senator Cruz made the case for why the precendent should be no different than the past 29 other times in history that there has been a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year.
“This has happened 29 times,” Cruz said. “29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year.”
“Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That’s what presidents do. If there’s a vacancy, they make a nomination,” he added.
“When the Senate has been the same party as the president — a vacancy occurs in an election year — of the 29 times, those are 19 of them. Of those 19, the Senate has confirmed those nominees 17 times. So if the parties are the same, the Senate confirms the nominee,” Cruz declared. “When the parties are different, that’s happened 10 times — Merrick Garland was one of them — of those 10, the Senate has confirmed the nominees only twice.”
Related Article: AOC Slams McConnell For Not Honoring Ginsburg’s ‘Dying Wish’, Ari Fleischer Levels Her: “A Supreme Court Justice Doesn’t Get To Pick The President”
Cruz went on to point out that a major reason why President Trump and Republican Senators were elected in the first place was so that “principled constitutionalists” would be elected to the courts.
“So, the President was elected to do this and the Senate was elected to do confirm this nomination,” he declared. Video Below
WATCH:
.@tedcruz: “29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That's what presidents do. If there's a vacancy, they make a nomination”https://t.co/LY7jt2sK0c pic.twitter.com/Iv02JxuMOU
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 20, 2020
