Republican leaders pre-committed to blocking a potential Clinton Court nominee before the election

Evidence

Senate Republicans played with similar ideas just before the 2016 election, openly announcing their plans to block Hillary Clinton from nominating anyone to the Supreme Court, should she become president. “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up,” declared Senator John McCain of Arizona just weeks before the voting began. And President Trump, of course, has repeatedly and falsely denounced Clinton’s popular-vote victory as illegitimate, the product of fraud and illegal voting. “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide,” he declared on Twitter weeks after the election, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 659

Categorization

• XREF: The pre-election refusal to even consider an opposing party’s legitimate nominee is another instance of the ‘nullifying elections’ pattern detailed in 656-658. — connects to: The Senate can block a judge via filibuster until a recess appointment — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 513; Appeals court nominee fights show harsh ideological and partisan politics — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 512