Dems Accuse Senate GOP Of Running And Hiding On SCOTUS Nom Blockade

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., right, and other Democrats, holds a copy of the Constitution as he urges Senate Republi... Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., right, and other Democrats, holds a copy of the Constitution as he urges Senate Republicans to relent on their decision to take no action on anyone President Barack Obama nominates to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, at the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
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Senate Democrats accused their Republican counterparts of hiding from the public, rather than explaining why they won’t even consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. The allegations flew after an unrelated public meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee — the committee that would typical host Supreme Court nomination hearings — scheduled for Thursday was abruptly canceled.

“This would have been the first opportunity for all members of this committee to debate in public the Republican chairman’s unilateral decision to issue a blanket hold on an unnamed Supreme Court nominee,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a committee member, said on the Senate floor Thursday. “They’re afraid to discuss the issue. They cannot in public debate win the argument that we shouldn’t be doing our job.”

The committee’s GOP chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), blamed Democrats for the cancellation. He said on the Senate floor that they wouldn’t cooperate with a “routine accommodation” he requested that the meeting instead be held in a private room near the Senate chamber so senators could also participate in a floor discussion of a bill to address the heroin crisis.

“I understand that they’re protesting the Judiciary Committee’s lack of action on a Supreme Court nomination, which nomination we couldn’t even possibly consider if the president doesn’t send it up,” Grassley said. “So I imagine that this is just the first of several problems that we’re going to have in the next few weeks.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the committee’s ranking Democratic member, said on the floor that Grassley’s explanation didn’t pass the “giggle test.”

“It’s important to have such meetings open for the press and anybody who wants to come in,” Leahy said. “There’s certainly a disagreement over how to move forward in filling the Supreme Court vacancy, but I think the American people want us to do our job, and it’s time we should have an open conversation about it.”

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