When Antonin Scalia unexpectedly passed away in February 2016, Sen. Mitch McConnell was struck with an idea: Create a new rule and precedent that a president cannot fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court during an election year. Our resident constitutional law expert, Sen. Mike Lee, saw fit to follow this rule and co-signed it by denying then Merrick Garland so much as a hearing in the Senate. The vacancy left by Justice Scalia was then filled the following year, after President Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Mr. Lee should follow the same principle and precedent he saw fit to follow in 2016 and not fill the vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg until after the inauguration in 2021. After all, Mr. Lee wouldn’t want to make a hypocrite of himself, would he?
Nick Beckstead, Bountiful