A new Democratic president could nominate someone for the Supreme Court in 2021 if there is a vacancy, and the pick would get a hearing and vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday.
But the nominee still might not be confirmed by a GOP-controlled Senate, he warned, The Hill reported.
McConnell noted two of President Richard Nixon's Supreme Court picks failed to pass the Senate — and said the same fate could befall a Democratic president if he or she were to nominate someone too radical for Republicans.
"A lot of it depends on the timing of the vacancy," McConnell told reporters.
"Obviously, if you have a vacancy in the first year of a term of a president, you're not going to fail to fill that vacancy for a very lengthy period of time, no matter what the political composition is," McConnell said.
The comment came after he was asked about the prospect of a Democratic president nominating a liberal candidate for the high court should Republicans maintain Senate control.
"The nominee might or might not be confirmed, depending on how controversial the nominee is," McConnell added. "But as a practical matter, I don't think in the first year in any administration you would react in the same way you did in the middle of a presidential election with a vacancy."
McConnell has touted his block of President Barack Obama's nominee to the high court, Judge Merrick Garland, in 2016 as one of his crowning achievements.
And after President Donald Trump was elected, McConnell changed the Senate's filibuster rule to confirm the new president’s nominee, conservative Neil Gorsuch.
Democrats need to pick up at least three seats in 2020 to regain the Senate majority.
"So, you're asking me all kinds of hypotheticals," he told reporters, The Hill reported. "What I'm telling you is a lot of it depends on when the vacancy occurs, what kind of nominee do you get, and the outcome you get depends many times on the nature of the nominee."
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