McGrath rails against McConnell’s Supreme Court push as he confirms another nominee.
At the top of the KET candidate forum Monday night Amy McGrath, the Democratic nominee, used a line she’s often said on the campaign trail to criticize Senator Mitch McConnell for failing to negotiate an additional COVID-19 relief package.
“What’s he doing right now?” McGrath asked. “He’s ramming through a Supreme Court nominee with eight days until the election.”
Quite literally.
Less than 15 minutes later, Amy Coney Barrett became the 115th Justice for the U.S. Supreme Court on a 52-48 vote. President Donald Trump’s third Supreme Court justice in less than four years and the consummation of what McConnell has called one of the most consequential political decisions of his career — his refusal to hold a hearing for former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
The night crystallized the 2020 campaign for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. McConnell, the majority leader of the Senate, in Washington D.C. pushing through one of his top legislative priorities. McGrath, in Lexington, railing against those priorities and McConnell’s political maneuvering.
In four years, McConnell has helped Trump push through three Supreme Court Justices, 53 circuit court judges and 162 district court judges, which has reshaped America’s judicial system for potentially decades.
“A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election,” the majority leader said on the Senate floor Sunday. “They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”
McGrath’s closing message has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, criticizing McConnell and the federal government for not doing enough to stem the spread of the virus and not enough to help prop up people who may have lost their jobs or businesses struggling to stay afloat.
Her message was overshadowed Monday night in a socially distant studio as the man she’s tilted at for more than a year celebrated in the Capitol, 538 miles away.
Instead, McGrath shared the studio with Libertarian candidate Brad Barron, who Democratic groups have propped up in recent weeks in an effort to peel off voters who may like Trump but dislike McConnell. When asked whether she agreed with Democratic dollars going to support Barron, McGrath attempted to condemn “dark money groups.”
McConnell refused to participate in any debates where Barron appeared.
At one point, Barron acknowledged the elephant (not) in the room, mentioning that McConnell was in D.C. voting on Barrett’s confirmation.
“Mitch has set us up for a potential packing of the courts for the Democrats,” Barron said. “Do I support her? Yes. Do I support President Trump’s right to nominate her? Yes. Do I think there will be political consequences? Yes.”
McGrath danced around a question about whether she believed Democrats should increase the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, saying she didn’t support “throwing away 200 years of precedent.”
“At this time, I’m not interested in packing the courts, I’m interested in unpacking the Senate,” she said, before moderator Renee Shaw pressed for an answer. McGrath eventually said she would support a commission to study the issue.
In September, McGrath said she would not weigh in on the qualifications of Barrett because she believed the Senate shouldn’t be considering any nominee at all, citing the “McConnell rule” where he wouldn’t let the Senate take up Garland (McConnell has said it was different in 2016, because Democrats controlled the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate).
She returned to that argument Monday night.
“It is absolutely wrong,” McGrath said. “There is no principle behind it. He has broken this system, completely broken it, and that’s why you have Vice President Biden standing up and saying ‘you know what, we need to fix this system.’”
Democrats have also tried to focus the Supreme Court debate on a top issue in the 2020 campaign — healthcare. Shortly after the election, the court is slated to take up a case that challenges whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and, if struck down, could affect some of the more popular elements of the law, like protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
On Monday night, McGrath alleged McConnell was pushing Barrett’s nomination because he wanted the Supreme Court to rule that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. In the last debate, McConnell said “no one” believed the Supreme Court was going to strike down the Affordable Care Act while Trump has said he hopes it does.
McConnell responded to similar criticism Monday night, referencing his old refrain that elections have consequences.
“The reason we were able to do what we did in 2016, 2018, and 2020 is because we had the majority,” McConnell said. “No rules were broken whatsoever. So all of these outlandish claims are utterly absurd, and the louder they scream, the more inaccurate they are.”
Just as the forum ended, President Donald Trump was holding a swearing-in ceremony for Barrett at the White House. McConnell moved to set up more votes for judges for when the Senate returns after the election.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 10:24 PM.
