What is Sen. Mitch McConnell thinking? Or, better, is Sen. McConnell thinking?
Minutes after the announcement of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Senate majority leader announced that the Senate will not act on any nomination President Barack Obama may send, sight unseen. McConnell gave as the reason the “tradition” that a president does not move to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the final year of his term.
Never mind whether McConnell’s position is sound constitutional principle, or even plausible political history. (It’s not.) How can it be in the best strategic interest of the Republican Party, right now, to refuse even to consider a nomination?
Thirty-four Senate seats are up for election in 2016. Republicans currently hold 24 of them. Most of them are in states that are so deeply red that the GOP need have no fear of losing them.
But the Republican Senate majority is 54 to 46, meaning that the Republicans are four losses away from being in the minority if a Democrat wins the vice presidency or five away if a Republican does. Obama carried six of the 23 states with Republican-held seats in 2012, in four cases by at least 5 percentage points. Mitt Romney carried no states that Democrats are defending.
A Supreme Court standoff would come at a terrible time for Republican Sens. Mark Kirk in Illinois, Rob Portman in Ohio, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and even a tea partyer, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, who are all working hard on their crossover cred. They were all elected in 2010, with the assist of a gigantic midterm-year wave. In a presidential election year, do they really need another thing to motivate Democrats to come to the polls?
The same question might be raised about the effect of McConnell’s position on the presidential race. Even with all the turmoil in the primaries, the Republicans’ prospects in 2016 are pretty good, with no Democratic incumbent on the ballot, a good but not great economy, and the fatigue that frequently handicaps the incumbent party after a two-term presidency.
But the GOP cannot count on winning the White House. The party has some serious weaknesses in presidential elections, as it discovered to its surprise in 2012. Latinos, Asians and, of course, new voters are rising in numbers and influence, and the Republican primary field is not making it any easier to appeal to them.
It will be hard enough for the Republican nominee to explain his party’s refusal to consider a well-qualified jurist whose appointment to one of the federal courts of appeals or one of the state supreme courts was approved by a large bipartisan majority. But suppose Obama’s choice is Latino, or Asian, or a woman. How will it go over with key constituencies in presidential swing states to stonewall that appointment?
It goes without saying that the new associate justice will be even more liberal if the Democrats win the White House and the Senate in the fall.
Finally, GOP obstruction is shortsighted because the next vacancies on the Supreme Court are more likely to be on its liberal side. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 82 and Justice Stephen Breyer, 77. Justice Anthony Kennedy, frequently the court’s pivotal vote, is 79. Suppose, in McConnell’s perfect world, that the Republicans were to win the White House and maintain control of the Senate. It will be much harder for Senate Democrats to obstruct a well-qualified conservative nominee — who will tip control of the court right back to the right — if Senate Republicans have given respectful consideration to the qualifications of Obama’s nominee.
The hallmark of a leader is the ability to take the long view, to put a strategy for pursuing important goals ahead of the emotional satisfactions of acting in the moment. Perhaps, for the good of the Grand Old Party, Sen. McConnell ought to think it through again.
John Mark Hansen is professor of political science at the University of Chicago.