The Senate has a lot to do and not much time to accomplish it in before the election in November. They have to go to conference with the House maniacs to save the farm bill, and with it food assistance to millions. They have a mess of appropriations bills to work through, and kind of importantly a bill that will keep the government operating after September 30. And now, according to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Supreme Court nomination that must be completed in the next several weeks.
That's got one key senator in the Supreme Court fight a little pissed off. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is one of the last supposedly pro-choice Republicans standing, though you wouldn't know it by her previous judicial confirmation votes. But now Murkowski is maybe looking for a way to avoid having to take a crappy SCOTUS vote.
"In order to get all these things you need to have a level of cooperation," said Murkowski. "And I don't want us to once again fall into this great divide because we are arguing over this vacancy."
She means cooperation from the Democrats, which she knows is going to be hard to come by because she's not going to pretend (like her buddy Susan Collins) that the nominee will be any way acceptable to them and might be bad enough that even Joe Manchin or Heidi Heitkamp wouldn't be able to hold their nose and do it.
There is something she could do, of course. She could lead. There are at least two others who are supposedly uncomfortable with Trump and his policies (but so far not his nominees). So if she wants to get legislative work—and her energy bills—done, she should recruit them to work with the Democrats and delay this nomination. She'd certainly have no problem getting even Democrats like Joe Manchin or Heidi Heitkamp to go along with a delay, not as long as there's Republican back-up.
She can't play it like she and Collins and John McCain did with their anti-Trumpcare vote last year, waiting until the last possible minute to derail it. It has to happen now.
Live in Alaska? You have the power. Sign and send a petition to Sen. Lisa Murkowski: Save Roe v. Wade. Oppose any anti-choice Supreme Court nominee.