Vacancy Watch: Wednesday, September 23, 2020

AFJ is committed to keeping you informed about our fight to keep Trump from stealing #OurCourt.

REALITY SHOW PREMIERE: As he has done for his previous Supreme Court nominees, President Trump has scheduled what he’s calling a “prime time” announcement for Saturday at 5 PM Eastern. In comments to the press Wednesday, he indicated he expects the confirmation to happen quickly enough that his nominated justice will be able to rule on potential challenges to the election results.

DECISIVE POLLING: A CNN poll out Wednesday afternoon shows that 59% of voters think the vacancy should be filled by “the president elected in November,” while only 41% believe Trump should fill it now.

CAPTURED COURTS REPORT: Today Senate Democrats released a new report about how the right-wing takeover of the courts is threatening access to health care and reproductive freedom. Click here to check out the full report.

FURTHER UNDERMINING NORMS: There appears to be no limit to the way the administration and Senate Republicans are trying to further erode norms to rush through this process. In an interview Tuesday, Vice President Pence implied they might completely skip a hearing altogether before moving to a confirmation vote:

DISTORTING GINSBURG’S WORDS: In the week before she passed, Justice Ginsburg said to her granddaughter that her dying wish was that her successor should not be confirmed until after a “new president is installed.” But many are trying to reject, distort, and ignore those comments:

• On Fox & Friends Monday, President Trump suggested Ginsburg’s granddaughter was lying, claiming the statement “came out of the wind” and may have been written by Democratic lawmakers.
• Fox News’ Tucker Carlson insisted that night that “we don’t know actually” if that’s what Ginsburg said. “Did she really leave this world fretting about a presidential election? We don’t believe that for a second?” he said on his show.
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to ignore the remark Tuesday and instead distorted something else Ginsburg previously said. “I prefer another thing she said recently which was she thought the number of the Supreme Court ought to be 9,” he falsely claimed. What Ginsburg had actually said there won’t be enough women on the court until there are nine — i.e., when it’s full — not that nine is the proper number of justices.

SENATE DEMS TAKE TO THE FLOOR: Tuesday night, Senate Democrats spoke out on the Senate floor about why this nomination should not move forward. Here are a few excerpts:

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