Hillary Clinton slammed “disgraceful” Republicans in a series of tweets Monday night, calling their intensifying pledge to block anyone President Barack Obama’s nominates to the Supreme Court a “new low.”
“With these critical cases in the balance, Republicans wasted no time in vowing to block any SCOTUS nomination from @POTUS. A new low,” Clinton tweeted in a series of 11 Tweets on the issue. “I have news for Republicans who would put politics over the Constitution: Refusing to do your duty isn’t righteous, it’s disgraceful.”
A mere hours after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia Saturday, a political battle had erupted, making its way into an already volatile election cycle.
Clinton, who urged Democrats in Nevada to make the Supreme Court a political issue over the weekend, insisted that it is Obama’s duty to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court, citing high-stakes Supreme Court cases that currently hang in the balance.
“The need to fill the Supreme Court vacancy is not an occasion for politics as usual,” Clinton tweeted. “This has real and urgent stakes for Americans now.”
Clinton’s charge that Republicans are playing “politics as usual” comes as Obama faces mounting opposition from Republicans in Congress and staunch rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates on the trail, as he searches for a new justice.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of several GOP presidential candidates who said Obama shouldn’t nominate a replacement, has focused on the issue at campaign events in South Carolina and addressed the significance of Supreme Court nominations in a new ad.
“Life, marriage, religious liberty, the Second Amendment. We’re just one Supreme Court justice away from losing them all,” the narrator in the ad says over an image of the court building.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quickly made it clear that he doesn’t want to hold a confirmation vote on an Obama nominee.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President,” McConnell said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Obama said in a statement Saturday that he plans to pick a replacement.