[Alaska Public Media) If Democrats were counting on Lisa Murkowski to vote against President Trump’s next nominee to the Supreme Court, they should think again.Sen. Murkowski said Tuesday she could not rule out that she would vote to confirm a Trump nominee if the Judiciary Committee approves one before the November election.
"I know everybody wants to ask the question, ’will you confirm the nominee?’" she said outside the Capitol, as her Republican colleagues were gathering for their weekly policy lunch. "We don’t have a nominee yet. You and I don’t know who that is. And so I can’t confirm whether or not I can confirm a nominee when I don’t know who the nominee is."
Sen. Mitt Romney took a similar position Tuesday, so it looks nearly impossible for Democrats to block Trump from seating his third Supreme Court justice.
Murkowski told Alaska Public Media last week, just before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, that she wanted to stick to the precedent set in 2016, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee because it was too close to an election.
"And so I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee," she said Friday.