President Donald Trump will meet with Senate leadership at the White House Tuesday concerning the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the meeting during remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday morning.
“The president has invited the Democratic leader, the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and myself to the White House this afternoon to meet with him regarding the Supreme Court vacancy as part of his ongoing consultations with members of the Senate,” he said. “I appreciate the president soliciting our advice on this important matter.”
The meeting will include McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s ranking Democrat.
Schumer has adopted a fairly bullish posture regarding the nomination, promising Senate Democrats will filibuster any nominee who they find outside the “mainstream.”
“I hope that President Trump picks a mainstream candidate,” Schumer told NBC’s Chuck Todd in November. “A mainstream candidate is someone you may not agree with on every issue, but basically believes in precedent and basically believes in following the law.” (RELATED: Schumer Warns Trump: Pick A Mainstream Supreme Court Nominee)
“If he doesn’t nominate a mainstream candidate, we’re going to go at him with everything we have … because this is so, so important,” he added.
If Democrats do stage a filibuster, Republicans could abolish the judicial filibuster altogether and proceed to a simple majority vote to confirm the nominee. The filibuster for most judicial nominees was abolished by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2013. However, it still applies against Supreme Court nominees. In a series of legacy interviews given prior to his departure from office, Reid anticipated the filibuster for nominees to the high court would be abolished in short order.
The three candidates considered “frontrunners” for the position include Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge William Pryor of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor is a favorite of Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions.
An announcement on the nomination is expected next week.
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