Lisa Murkowski Not Ruling Out Voting for Trump’s SCOTUS Nominee

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is no longer ruling out a vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, according to a report.

Murkowski told Alaska Public Media on Tuesday that she could not rule out that she would vote to confirm the nominee if the Judiciary Committee approves one before the November election.

“I know everybody wants to ask the question, ‘will you confirm the nominee?’” she said. “We don’t have a nominee yet. You and I don’t know who that is. And so I can’t confirm whether or not I can confirm a nominee when I don’t know who the nominee is.”

Last week, Murkowski told Alaska Public Media on Friday — right before the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — that she would stick to the precedent set in 2016, that in an election year the winning presidential candidate would nominate a new justice if there was a vacancy on the court.

However, Murkowski did say she still “opposes” a Senate confirmation vote this close to an election and that she did not support the process moving forward. But she added: “Now, having said that, this process is moving forward with or without me.”

She said her vote could depend on whether she felt the process was too rushed or not.

“If I had felt that there was a rush to move this through because you’re up against a deadline that is hard and fast, like an election, and that a nominee had not been thoroughly and fairly evaluated through our process, then I’m going to have to look at that,” she told the outlet.

Republicans appear to have enough votes in the Senate to confirm Trump’s nominee, whom he is expected to name soon.

Fellow Alaskan Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) has said he supports Trump’s Supreme Court justice nomination going forward.

“The historical precedent and principle of an election year nomination to the Supreme Court, dating back to the founding of our republic, is that the Senate has generally confirmed a President’s nominee from its own party and not confirmed one from the opposing party,” Sullivan said in a press statement on Tuesday, according to APM.

Now, only Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has vowed to vote against Trump’s pick if it comes before the election.

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