In a column for the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty pointed out that Senate Republicans' insistence on snapping up the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election -- after blocking Merrick Garland in 2016 -- is one more reason why they GOP must lose control of the Senate.
With Republican lawmakers fanning out on Sunday defending their hypocrisy on presidential election-year votes on high court nominees, Tumulty wasn't having it and called some of them out by name.
Addressing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who is "vowing to fast-track whomever President Trump names with only six weeks to go until the 2020 election," the columnist wrote, "In fact, McConnell’s actions are totally in keeping with the opportunism with which he has led the Senate. Given a chance, he will always abuse his power. Branding McConnell a hypocrite misses the point. Hypocrisy — coupled with an utter lack of shame — is not a character fault in his eyes. It is a management style, a means to an end."
As for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Donald Trump's replacement nominee, Tumulty wrote, "Back in the days when he pretended to care about something more than sucking up to power, Graham used to say Republicans would have to live with what they had done to Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland," before adding the South Carolina Republican has tried to justify going back on his word because he feels Democrats "... did things that offended him. So it’s payback time."
"Oh, and let’s consider the sanctimonious and pseudointellectual Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX.)," she continued by pointing out that Cruz has been lying about instances of presidential nominees being confirmed during election years."
As Tumulty points out, 23 Republican senators -- including Graham and McConnell -- will be on the ballot in November giving voters their chance to voice their displeasure.
"A net loss of just four of them — or three if Democrats win back the White House, and a Vice President Kamala D. Harris gains the tie-breaking vote in the Senate chamber — would send the Republicans back into the minority," she explained. "It would be a corrective they richly deserve, and even more important, a lesson for future senators that principles mean nothing if they can be bargained away for power."
You can read more here.
