U.S. Senator Rick Scott wrote Friday that Democrats were “hypocritical” for opposing the President’s right to pick a Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Elections have consequences. Americans elected Donald Trump and a Republican Senate knowing that Supreme Court seats could be at stake. We’re carrying out the will of the voters while Senate Democrats are just being hypocrites,” Scott wrote in a rhetorical provocation in a USA Today oped, saying that in two successive elections, American voters have signaled that they want the Republican President and the Mitch McConnell led Senate to produce high court judges.
Scott contended “the voters doubled down on Republican control, electing Donald Trump as President of the United States and keeping Republicans in the Senate majority — a majority that was expanded in 2018 when the voters chose to keep Republicans in the Senate majority and replaced three Democrats with Republicans — including myself.”
Though some may cavil that Trump didn’t win the popular vote in 2016, and that a Blue Wave reshaped Congress in 2018, Scott’s arguments don’t address those phenomena.
“Unlike 2016, the White House and the Senate are both controlled by Republicans. I believe we have a duty and responsibility to hold hearings and a confirmation vote on President Trump’s nominee,” Scott said, adding that “Democrats and their allies in the media are already howling with claims of hypocrisy.”
“What we’re doing is exactly what the voters and the constitution prescribed,” Scott added. “If Senate Democrats don’t like that, win more elections.”
Scott has been a consistent advocate for the President’s right to fill the spot. He has advocated for Hialeah’s Barbara Lagoa, a 52-year-old judge who moved to the federal 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals from the Florida Supreme Court in 2019.
Lagoa has been a rising star in judicial circles, and numerous Florida Republicans have been behind the scenes making the push for Lagoa both on qualifications and political grounds.
The President will announce his pick on Saturday. “Four or five” women are in play, including Lagoa, Allison Jones Rushing (just 38 years old, as Trump keeps saying) and Amy Barrett.
Smart-set speculation has centered on Barrett as the front-runner, with Mitch McConnell and others advocating her.
