Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said while she welcomes diversity on the Supreme Court, President Joe Biden’s handling of replacing retiring Justice Stephen Breyer so far “has been clumsy at best.”
“I would welcome the appointment of a Black female to the court,” the Republican senator told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “I believe that diversity benefits the Supreme Court. But the way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best.”
Breyer announced his retirement from the high court on Wednesday, and President Joe Biden has pledged to replace him with a Black woman — a promise he first made on the campaign trail.
“It adds to the further perception that the court is a political institution like Congress when it is not supposed to be,” Collins said. “So, I certainly am open to whomever he decides to nominate. My job as a senator is to evaluate the qualifications of that person under the advice and consent role.”
Democrats seek to quickly fill the seat that Breyer occupied for nearly three decades since his appointment under then-President Bill Clinton in 1994.If all 50 Democrats vote to confirm Biden’s nominee, the nominee will not require any support from Republicans since Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate.
On that point, Stephanopoulos pressed: “Isn’t this process politicized no matter what you do? I mean, look at what happened after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Barrett pushed through in record time, one of the reasons I suppose you voted against her.”
“Actually, the reason I voted against the Amy Coney Barrett was that her nomination and the vacancy occurred too close to the election, the presidential election,” Collins said. “And Republicans just in the Obama administration had established a precedent that we were not going to confirm someone, it was Merrick Garland in that case and an election year,” Collins explained. “I did not agree with that decision, but once that precedent was established and given how close the death of the Supreme Court justice was to when the appointment was made of Justice Barrett, I felt that it should have been up to the next president to make the decision.”
This time around, the president is possibly eyeing Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for a seat on the high court. She garnered bipartisan support last year for her federal court nomination. Collins was one of three Senate Republicans who approved her confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
When Stephanopoulos asked whether Collins would support Jackson, the senator said she is open-minded and willing to weigh the sitting federal judge and any other potential appointees.
“I’ll certainly give her every consideration. I have no idea since she was confirmed what ruling she’s been involved in, what writing she has done and I have not met her personally,” she said. “And that’s why I really appreciated Chairman Durbin reaching out to me and offering to make the nominee available for an extensive interview and to provide me with whatever information I need to make a decision on whomever the nominee is.”
Collins, who is known for her commitment to bipartisanship, was also asked about efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act as she is leading a bipartisan working group of 16 senators to do so.
“Do you share Senator Durbin’s confidence that Electoral College reform, the reform of the Electoral College Act, can take place this year on a bipartisan basis?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“I certainly hope so. This is not a small matter. This 1887 law governs the counting and certification of the presidential vote. And we saw, on January 6th of 2021 how ambiguities, simple law, were exploited,” Collins answered. “We need to prevent that from happening again.”
The law allows one congressperson paired with one senator to object to the election results submitted by each state, a tactic both parties have utilized previously, although allies of former President Donald Trump attempted to block the decision in several states during the 2020 presidential election.
Suggested provisions included in the effort to reform the Electoral College include changing the vice president’s role to become more ministerial in nature and raising the total number of senators and House members required to challenge a state’s electoral vote count.
The decision to review the federal law comes after Republicans blocked a voting rights bill championed by Democrats.
The federal voting rights legislation came in response to what’s been dubbed the “big lie” pushed by Trump that he was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election and a slew of more restrictive voting laws across the country that were introduced under those false pretenses.
As one of seven Republican senators who backed the second impeachment proceedings against Trump in the wake of the insurrection attempt at the nation’s Capitol, Stephanopoulos asked Collins if she could see supporting Trump if he decides to run for president again in 2024.
“As you’re working on this reform, former President Trump is out on the campaign trail. He was out in Texas last night suggesting he may pardon those, if he were elected in 2024, those who were part of the January 6th riots. Given that, can you imagine any circumstances where you could support his election in 2024?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Well, we’re a long ways from 2024. But let me say this, I do not think the president should have made that, President Trump should have made that pledge to do pardons,” Collins said. “We should let the judicial process proceed.”
She called Jan. 6, 2021, “a dark day in our history.”
Stephanopoulos pressed: “It was. And you voted to convict President Trump as well. Why can’t you rule out supporting him in 2024?”
“Well, certainly it’s not likely given the many other qualified candidates that we have that have expressed interest in running. So it’s very unlikely,” Collins said.
DUH!!!