A second Republican Senator, Lisa Murkowski, said on Sunday that she would not vote to appoint a judge to the Supreme Court of the United States before the presidential election on November 3, contrary to the injunctions of President Donald Trump.
Read also: How the Supreme Court has turned to the Republican side since the election of Donald Trump
"
For weeks, I have been saying that I will not support the appointment of a Supreme Court judge so close to the election,
" recalled the moderate elected from Alaska in a statement sent to AFP.
“
Sadly, what was only hypothetical has become reality
” with the death of progressive magistrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday, “
but my position has not changed,
” she added.
President Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term, intends to appoint a successor to the magistrate as soon as possible to firmly anchor the High Court in conservatism.
His choice will have to be ratified by the Senate, where the Republicans have a narrow majority of 53 elected out of 100. The political equation is delicate: besides Lisa Murkowski, another moderate Republican senator Susan Collins said she was opposed to a vote before the poll.
"
No thanks
"
The leader of the Republican majority in the upper house of Congress, Mitch McConnell, had indicated on Friday that he intended to organize the vote, although he refused, in 2016, to hear a judge selected by Democratic President Barack Obama , on the grounds that the presidential election, scheduled eight months later, was too close.
Ms. Murkowski recalls that she supported this position in 2016. "
Today we are even closer to the election - less than two months - and I think the same rule must apply,
" she said. still justified.
The senator, one of the few Republican voices to support the right of women to have an abortion, had already abstained in 2018 during the confirmation vote of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, chosen by Donald Trump to enter the Supreme Court.
Perhaps informed of his decision, the Republican billionaire rejected Sunday a tweet inviting to meet the senator, adding this acerbic comment: "
no thanks
".