Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was called out by his Democratic colleague after the Kentucky senator complained about playing "political games" with judicial nominations.
McConnell made the remark during a Senate floor session on Monday and said he was concerned that two U.S. circuit court judges who had plans to retire may not follow through with them in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. election.
"This sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary," McConnell said. "Never, never before has a circuit judge un-retired after a presidential election. It's literally unprecedented."
The Kentucky senator went on to say that "these vacancies now properly belong to the next president. As I repeatedly warned the judiciary in other matters, if you play political games, expect political prizes."
McConnell's colleague across the aisle, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, didn't mince words when he reminded the minority leader of his refusal to grant a confirmation hearing to Merrick Garland, whom President Barack Obama nominated in March 2016 to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
Obama nominated Garland eight months before the 2016 election, but McConnell insisted at the time that the next president should fill Scalia's seat on the court.
"I listened carefully to my colleague from Kentucky explain his concerns about the filling of four circuit court vacancies," Durbin said on Monday. "And he raises a question about whether that's fair.
"Well, I'd like to call the Senate's attention to the fact that there was a moment in time when we were shocked to learn that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had died while on a hunting trip," he continued. "And the decision was made almost instantly by the senator from Kentucky, the same senator who just talked about delaying and filling vacancies."
"The decision was made by him not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy," Durbin added.
Indeed, McConnell said at the time, "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."
The Kentucky senator reversed course four years later when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the 2020 election.
Within hours of Ginsburg's death in September 2020, McConnell released a statement pledging that Trump's nominee to fill Ginsburg's seat would "receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate." Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett shortly after, and she was confirmed to the Supreme Court a month later.
McConnell has long said that filling the federal bench with conservative judges is his "top priority."
"There are over 1,200 executive branch appointments that come to us for confirmation, and among the most important — in fact, I would argue, the most important — confirmations we have are lifetime appointments to the judiciary," McConnell told NPR in 2018.
The Kentucky senator's comments on Monday came on the heels of a deal that Democrats made with Republicans last month, in which Democrats agreed to cede four circuit court nominations in exchange for the Senate confirming more of President Joe Biden's lower-court judicial nominees.
Schumer's office defended the deal last month, telling Politico, "The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward."
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