Conservative groups are sending a clear message to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and all those Republicans up for re-election this year: You don't matter, the Supreme Court does. So McConnell's marching orders are to prevent any nominee picked by President Obama from so much as getting a hearing, even if it means ceding control of the Senate back to Democrats.
Taking action on a Supreme Court nominee—even through the Judiciary Committee—when Obama has less than a year left in his term would be a cardinal sin, conservative activists say.
They argue the ideological balance of the court is so important that it's not worth playing political games to take the pressure off vulnerable Republican incumbents.
"I would rank having a conservative justice as more important than having the majority in the Senate," said David Bozell, president of For America, a conservative advocacy group. "God knows this Republican majority in the Senate hasn't done much anyway for conservatism, period.
"If you look at some of the conservative movement's successes, it's in large part due to the court doing some decent things and making some good decisions," he added.
That sentiment was echoed by Mike Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, who told The Hill that the Senate doesn't really do anything important for the things that matter most to the conservative home school community. And what's important to them doesn't have anything to do with education as you might surmise, but "whether or not we have Second Amendment rights, […] marriage, […] abortion." Republican senators can get bent for all he cares—he wants the court.
One by one, Republican senators are falling into line, parroting the line that the voters should decide who gets to pick the next justice. Meanwhile, McConnell isn't going to go away quietly. He's raising money off of their allegiance to the hard right and willingness to abdicate their responsibilities.
Which is all pretty remarkable. McConnell is willing to risk his own leadership—and potentially his job—for the possibility of having Donald Trump pick the next Supreme Court justice, and the direction the court will go for the next generation. So much for proving that Republicans can govern.
