POINT-COUNTERPOINT

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POINT:

HYPOCRACY=MITCH MCCONNELL

By: Wil Morris

It hasn’t been hours since the Notorious RBG took her last breath before Mitch McConnell forgot his January 2016 pronouncement that the American people should pick the next Supreme Court Justice in blocking President Obama’s nomination some 10 months before the Presidential Election. 
But that is the world we now occupy. One where honor and one’s words and principles takes a seat in the back row in favor of politics. 
The shameless pronouncement by McConnell to bring President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee to a vote on the Senate floor tolls a death knell to Republican politics – one that we can only hope rings final for the now Trump co-opted Party. 

COUNTERPOINT:

DON’T BLAME THE PLAYER-BLAME THE GAME

By: Nathaniel Ballantyne

McConnell is correct in pronouncing that Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court will receive a vote on the Senate floor. The rule is simple; when there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court, it is the president’s duty to fill that vacancy with the consent and advice of the Senate. It is Trump’s duty as president to nominate the next Supreme Court justice. And even if he were to lose the election in November, his term will not expire until January 20, 2021.

It is true that Senator McConnell refused to schedule a vote in 2016 for Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonio Scalia, who had died in February of 2016. At the time, McConnell argued that the American people should pick the next Supreme Court justice. Still, regardless of that position or statement, the fact remains the Republicans are in control of the Senate, and if Trump nominates someone, it is their duty to bring the nominee to a vote if they so choose.

If Democrats were in control of the Senate, they would block any persons Trump nominates. Don’t blame McConnell blames the American people for giving control of the Senate to the Republicans.