More than 100 protesters gathered outside the Louisville home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday. The protest group gathered the day after McConnell rushed to insist to the world that the Senate would hold a vote on a presumed nominee from President Donald Trump to replace the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away on Friday. McConnnell’s insistence that the Senate would vote on whoever Trump eventually nominated flies in the face of the precedent that Senate Republicans set when they refused to hold a vote on then-President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. At the time, Senate Republicans cited the imminent presidential election as an excuse.
Check out video footage of the protest below:
Protest outside Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville in response to his comments on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death
Posted by Courier Journal on Saturday, September 19, 2020
Check out a clip below:
Outside of @senatemajldr house right now. Crowd getting bigger. LMPD trying to keep people on sidewalks. pic.twitter.com/0AKxmfHpML
— Joel Willett (@realJoelWillett) September 19, 2020
Protesters who gathered in Louisville on Saturday aimed to remind McConnell of his own previous words. One of the demonstrators held a sign inscribed with a statement from McConnell in 2016, who insisted at the time that the “American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.” No matter what contorted rhetorical nonsense McConnell and his allies push in coming days and weeks, the fact of the matter is that they are working to deny the opportunity to the American people to finish voting before kickstarting the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice. Americans have already started voting in a handful of states!
This woman, Laura Johnsrude, has a sign quoting Mitch McConnell from 2016. She said she is “disgusted” but is “not surprised” by his statement. pic.twitter.com/Aiuab2RIkh
— Hayes Gardner (@HayesGardner) September 19, 2020
Protester Laura Johnsrude insisted the following on Saturday:
‘I’m disgusted that Senator McConnell would treat this opportunity in a complete different manner than he treated the opportunity when there was a vacancy when Obama was nine or 10 months away from the election. I’m not surprised, but I am disgusted. I think that’s appalling.’
In addition to the protesters who gathered outside of his home in Kentucky, McConnell faces opposition from other fronts as well. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who might be the Democratic leader closest to the front row of a Senate fight over Ginsburg’s replacement — posted McConnell’s own words on Twitter on Friday evening.
Schumer posted:
‘The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.’
The clincher, of course, is that McConnell no longer seems to care about giving the American people any more of a voice. In a Saturday call with fellow Democrats, Schumer insisted that “nothing is off the table” if McConnell moves forward with replacing Ginsburg. Options include adding seats to the court, which would require Democratic Senate control.
Chuck Schumer on a call to Democrats today about Republicans filling RBG’s seat: “Let me be clear: if Leader McConnell and Senate Rerpublicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year. Nothing is off the table."
— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) September 19, 2020
