The White House is chipping away at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court blockade. His position of "no meetings, no hearings, no vote" is cracking up under the pressure of senators actually having constituents they feel the need to respond to.
The White House has lined up more meetings between the Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick B. Garland and Republican lawmakers, with Senators Susan Collins of Maine and John Boozman of Arkansas scheduled to sit down with him on Tuesday.
Ms. Collins has been outspoken in her view that Judge Garland, whom she has supported in the past, deserves consideration, while Mr. Boozman’s position was uncertain. White House officials will hope the example set by the two, and by Senator Mark S. Kirk, Republican of Illinois, who met with Judge Garland this week, will lead other Republicans to follow suit.
How serious Collins is in actually doing something about it is a real question, since there are things she could do like leave the Republican party, and set an example for others to bail out. That's unlikely to happen before November though, if ever. Sen. Mark Kirk, running for his political life in Illinois, already met with Garland and is talking tough about his colleagues telling them to be "rational," though stopping short of saying he'd actually vote for the nominee.
At this point there are 16 Republicans willing to have meetings. (Sen. Marco Rubio is on this list, but he's backtracked, probably because that would mean he'd have to show up at work.) Now, some on that list are the likes of Chuck Grassley, whose agreeing to meet with Garland was followed by a comparison to meeting with dictator Idi Amin. Also on that list is Ron Johnson, genius, who says "I'm not sure what the point will be.")
Regardless, McConnell's absolutist position will not hold. The burning question is how many Republicans are going to be willing to sacrifice themselves so he can save his own leadership skin.
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