The Latest: McConnell: Senate will vote on Trump court pick
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote on President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, even though it’s an election year
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Your support makes all the difference.The Latest on the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (all times local):
9 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote on President Donald Trump's pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, even though it's an election year.
The Republican Senate leader issued a statement Friday night, about an hour and a half after the Supreme Court announced the liberal justice's death from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
When conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, also an election year, McConnell refused to act on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump’s surprising presidential victory.
Trump ended up nominating Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed to the court.
The 2020 election is 46 days away.
McConnell had earlier said he would move to confirm a Trump nominee if there were a vacancy this year.
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7:40 p.m.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, has died at her home in Washington. She was 87.
The court says Ginsburg died Friday of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.
Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace the court’s Jewish grandmother, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defense of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.
Those health issues included five bouts with cancer beginning in 1999, falls that resulted in broken ribs, insertion of a stent to clear a blocked artery and assorted other hospitalizations after she turned 75.