On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would refuse to let President Joe Biden fill a Supreme Court seat in 2024 if Republicans win the Senate next year. McConnell also suggested that he would not let Biden fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2023, even if the president nominated “a normal mainstream liberal.” These comments are not remotely surprising. The Republican Party has outsourced much of its agenda to the federal judiciary, a strategy that requires its lawmakers to ruthlessly extinguish Democrats’ influence over the courts. To that end, a GOP-controlled Senate will never again confirm a Democratic president’s Supreme Court nominee. Not in an election year or any other year. Not in your lifetime or mine. Never.

McConnell played slightly coy when discussing the possibility of a Supreme Court confirmation in 2023, telling Hewitt: “Well, we’d have to wait and see what happens.” But anyone who seriously believes a Republican-controlled Senate would confirm a Biden nominee that year—or even hold hearings on one—is deluding themselves. McConnell’s approach to judicial confirmations reflects two core […]