Carrie Severino, the chief counsel and policy director for the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, added:
"Executive orders don't outlast the president, legislation can change, but these judgeships last a long time."
Quietly, Republican lawmakers are preparing for Ginsberg's retirement.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told Politico:
"We're going to fill it. With Justice Scalia...people might not have thought he was the one, because he wasn't the oldest at the time. You just never know."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) added:
"If the president makes a nomination then it's our responsibility to take it up."
In 2018, Republicans took advantage of their inevitably fleeting majority by approving 66 judicial nominees, in addition to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Putting that into perspective, the second year of Barack Obama's first term, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed 49, mostly due to Sen. McConnell's refusal to act on nominees.
In eight years, Obama got through 55 circuit court judges; George W. Bush, 62.
Just after the 2018 mid-term elections in which the Republicans lost the House of Representatives, McConnell commented at a press conference:
"You know what my top priority is? It's the judiciary. We intend to keep confirming as many as we possibly can as long as we can do it."
A White House official told Politico:
"If anything there will be more of an appetite for judges and more of a focus on it without the House anymore. It will be one of the few affirmative things that could still be pushed."
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote in a Fox News op-ed:
"If the Democrats had acquired a majority in the Senate, they could have blocked every person President Trump nominated for federal judgeships. This was the biggest achievement of Trump's first two years, and now it is likely guaranteed to continue."
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