Television crews set up in front of the Supreme Court in Washington. President Donald Trump is expected to announce his choice. Photo / AP
Television crews set up in front of the Supreme Court in Washington. President Donald Trump is expected to announce his choice. Photo / AP
With hours to go until US President Donald Trump reveals his choice to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, pressure has gone on Democrats in tough election fights.
The White House named former senator Jon Kyl of Arizona as the "sherpa" who will guide the eventual nominee through the Senate.
Kyl, a Republican who rose to the No. 2 spot in the Senate before his retirement in 2013, is a veteran of Supreme Court confirmation battles, having served on the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmations of four of the last five justices to join the court. He is currently a lobbyist in the Washington headquarters of Covington & Burling.
The move comes as Trump has remained coy about his final Supreme Court decision, which is expected to be announced at 9pm (1pm NZT) from among the four federal judges atop his shortlist: Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barrett.
Kavanaugh, who lives in the Maryland suburbs, serves on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Hardiman, who is based in Pennsylvania, is on the 3rd Circuit. Michigan's Kethledge is on the 6th Circuit, while Indiana's Barrett is on the 7th Circuit.
Conservative outside groups are standing at the ready to make the case for Trump's Supreme Court choice, whoever it may be.
The Judicial Crisis Network, which has already launched an ad blitz in the wake of Kennedy's retirement last month, announced that it is embarking on a new week-long, US$1.4 million ad campaign touting the eventual nominee's biography.
The group spent a total of about US$10 million last year in an effort to ease the confirmation of Trump's first Supreme Court pick, Gorsuch.
US President Donald Trump with his supporters at a rally in Great Falls, Montana last week. Photo / AP file
In a sign that the White House will try to pressure vulnerable Democrats to support Trump's nominee, both senators Joe Donnelly, Indiana, and Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota, said they were invited to the event at the White House.
"While I appreciate the invitation from the White House to attend this evening's announcement, I declined so that I can meet first with the nominee in a setting where we can discuss his or her experience and perspectives," Donnelly said. "In the coming days, I will be reviewing the record and qualifications of the president's nominee."
Heitkamp also said she wouldn't attend.
"She has made clear - as she said to the President in person two weeks ago - that she considers fully vetting Supreme Court nominees one of the most important jobs of any US senator, and she plans to fulfill that critical duty," her spokeswoman, Abigail McDonough, said.
GALLUP: President Trump’s job approval rating is 41% 👍 to 56% 👎.
Republicans hold a razor-thin 51-to-49 majority in the Senate, giving them little wiggle room in a nomination battle that is expected to last until at least early October.
All four of Trump's finalists were culled from a preselected list of 25 judges, curated by White House Counsel Donald McGahn with the help of Leonard Leo, executive vice-president of the conservative Federalist Society.
Democrats have made healthcare and reproductive rights the centerpiece of their argument against Trump's nominee, and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer doubled down on that argument in a speech on the Senate floor, arguing that "those rights would be gravely threatened" by any nominee from Trump's list.
"No one has been more dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade than Leonard Leo," Schumer said, referring to the landmark abortion rights ruling.
Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey, D, who voted against Gorsuch and is facing re-election in a state Trump narrowly won, announced that he will oppose anyone Trump chooses.
"This list is the bidding of corporate special interests hell-bent on handing healthcare over to insurance companies, crushing unions that represent working men and women, and promoting policies that will leave the middle-class further behind," Casey said.
"Any judge on this list is fruit of a corrupt process straight from the DC swamp."
Some experts contend that regardless who Trump picks from among his favored quartet of judges, the difference when it comes to actual court decisions will be minimal.
I have long heard that the most important decision a U.S. President can make is the selection of a Supreme Court Justice - Will be announced tonight at 9:00 P.M.
"When there's so little actual daylight between the four front-runners, it's not surprising that the partisans are going to try to grasp onto whatever micro distinction they can find," said Stephen Vladeck, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas Law School.
"But in the process we lose sight of the far more important points, which is just how much any of them would move the court to the right."
Vladeck said that none of the four judges believed to be the front-runners "have the sort of centrist features that came to characterise much, although not all, of Justice Kennedy's jurisprudence."
"There are differences among the four of them that might show up in how they write their opinions, how they interact with their colleagues, what they do in their spare time, but I don't think those differences are going to be reflected in any of their votes," he said. "And certainly not many of their votes."
If not for the Supreme Court vacancy, here are at least five rough stories for Trump that would be getting *much more* attention right now -- via @NBCFirstRead https://t.co/LfWDhFSDF5pic.twitter.com/i1eXvnV91m
