The United Utah Party has issued the following statement:
Senator Mitt Romney’s announcement that he will support efforts to move forward to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is disappointing, not because it is inappropriate for a Senator to fulfill his constitutional responsibility to vote on a qualified nominee, but rather that he relies on naked partisanship to justify his decision. This simply escalates the growing trend to make party the primary consideration in Supreme Court confirmations, which defies historical precedent for how such nominations have been considered over the past century. In his public statement, Senator Romney claimed that that the historical record has been that the party controlling both the Senate and the White House confirms their nominee, but when the Senate faces the opposing party controlling the White House, they do not act on the nominee. But this has not been the case. For most of the 20th Century, partisanship played little or no role on whether nominees would be considered or whether they deserved confirmation. In fact, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon all nominated individuals who did not share their partisan affiliation.The evaluation of the partisan merits of Supreme Court Justices is a relatively recent phenomenon. Justice Antonin Scalia, considered by many partisans as the consummate Republican jurist, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Justice Ginsburg, long the darling of Democratic activists, was likewise confirmed by a vote of 96-3. It should not matter which party controls the Senate or the White House in terms of how the nomination process is conducted.The UUP supports reducing the partisanship in government, including the US Supreme Court nomination process. Republicans should not rush through a confirmation to beat the election clock, nor should Democrats threaten to increase the size of the court as revenge. We need to return to a time when judicial nominations transcended the pettiness of partisan politics.
