Last Friday, September 18th, was just another day in the march towards November 3rd election day.
President Trump was pulling ahead for the first time in the polls and we were discussing what happened if, on election day, several states who President Trump is leading is, announce they will need extra days to count all the “late” mail-in ballots.
The general consensus was, if needed, the Supreme Court might have to put an end to the process in the event of a contested election.
We can remember what happened with the hanging chads in the very close Presidential election in Florida, 1980.
The election was on November 7th and though very close George W. Bush was declared the winner. But because of disputes over some of the ballots, the election was not allowed to be certified and every ballot cast in Palm Beach County was ordered to be manually recounted. Finally, after no agreement could be found, the Supreme Court ruled on December 12, 2000, that Florida’s election certification was approved ending the national election.
Back to last Friday, all of the above discussions were thrown out the window when the Supreme Court announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died in her home from cancer.
Twitter blew up and both sides of the political spectrum started their public arguments for and against President Trump nominating her replacement.
President Trump, flying back from a Trump Rally did not find out about Ginsburg’s passing until deplaning and was asked by reporters to comment on the story.
Saturday morning the President laid out the plan, he was moving forward with the nomination process and expected the senate to do their job and give the nominee an up or down vote after completing the confirmation process.
With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s announcement that the US Senate will push on with Trump’s pick to replace Ginsburg, the media all zeroed in on 3-5 GOP Senators who could get in the way.
Of those, Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) all said they would support moving forward with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the only GOP senator to oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, and Susan Collins (R-Maine) leaning towards opposing too.
Even with these 2, the GOP has 53 seats and with VP Pence as the tiebreaker, the Democrats would need 2 more defectors to stop Prssdin Trump from getting his nominee on the court, at least before the election.
Still on the fence is Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who has an open disdain for the President, leading to a tweet like the following as a huge victory for the the left.
But before the champagne bottles could be uncorked, Senator Romney’s communications director, Liz Johnson, refuted the report just hours after former Utah State Senator Jim Dabakis claimed to have been privy to it.
Monday will be a very contentious day on Capitol Hill.
The entire process will come down to the final up or down announcements from Romney, Collins, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). If 3 say no, President Trump will not get his Third Supreme Court Justice on the court in his first term.
Just like the impeachment hoax, I have to believe Senator Romney will do the right thing for the people of Utah, and vote yes.
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