America sets out in search of the successor to the Supreme Court of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, icon of the deceased American left.
Decided to anchor this institution in the conservative camp before the presidential election, despite the reluctance within his party, Donald Trump refined his choice on Sunday, September 20.
Two Republican senators have already announced that they will refuse to fill this post, endowed with enormous powers, before the ballot, which singularly complicates the equation for the president.
Campaigning for his re-election, Donald Trump has promised that he will quickly appoint "a very talented woman" to replace judge "RBG", a feminist and progressive icon, who died Friday, September 18, at the age of 87, from cancer .
A narrow list
To galvanize the religious right, he had already published a pre-selection of magistrates sharing their values on abortion, the right to bear arms or even religious freedoms.
He has now "tightened the list" of candidates and will "very quickly" make his choice known, said Sunday, on CNN, Marc Short, chief of staff to vice-president, Mike Pence.
Two names are circulating with insistence to join the eight judges of the high court.
The first is that of Amy Coney Barrett, a 48-year-old Catholic, who has a long academic career.
She is renowned for her articles on legal doctrine, largely influenced, according to her detractors, by her traditionalist religious values.
A magistrate of Cuban origin Barbara Lagoa, 52, also seems well placed.
A former Florida Supreme Court judge, she now practices in a federal appeals court in Atlanta.
It has the advantage of coming from a key state, likely to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
Once Donald Trump has made his choice known, he will come back to the Senate, where the Republican Party has 53 out of 100 seats, to confirm it.
"Hypocrisy"
Their leader Mitch McConnell has already said he would organize a vote, even if he refused to do so for a candidate put forward by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2016, on the grounds that the poll was too close.
Democrats strongly criticized him for this turnaround.
"Looks like Senator McConnell has lost his faith in the judgment of Americans," former Democratic President Bill Clinton criticized CNN, calling him "hypocrisy."
For him, the bet is dangerous and places certain Republican senators in a delicate position.
"We'll see what people think of 'candidates running for re-election' who clearly do the opposite of what they said before."
"Out of fairness to the American people," the moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is leading a difficult campaign, said on Saturday that it would be necessary to wait for the verdict of the ballot box before filling the vacant seat.
On Sunday, her colleague Lisa Murkowski, in turn, let it be known that she would not vote for a post on the Supreme Court "so close to the elections".
"The stakes are huge"
"We need an entire Court for polling day," said Senator Ted Cruz, an ultra-conservative, on the contrary, recalling that the Court may have to settle electoral disputes.
But he had to admit that he was not sure his party had the necessary votes.
If two other Republican senators defect, Donald Trump's candidate will be blocked.
The battle to convince the potential pivots therefore promises to be fierce.
Since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, millions of dollars have been raised by progressive groups who intend to run targeted campaigns in the most contested constituencies.
Democrats don't have many legal weapons to prevent this appointment, however.
Asked about this on ABC, their leader in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, assured to have "strings to his bow", without wanting to give details.
"The stakes are huge," she said, stressing that the Supreme Court is notably supposed to rule in the coming months on the future of the so-called Obamacare health insurance reform, which has extended coverage. diseases of millions of Americans but which Republicans want to dismantle.
"I think you have to stay very calm," she continued.
And above all, she added, "everyone must go and vote."
With AFP
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