During the second general election debate in North Carolina’s highly-contested Senate race, between incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham, Senator Chuck Schumer’s hand-picked candidate punted on a straightforward question on the Supreme Court.
When asked if former Vice President Joe Biden should release his list of candidates to be nominated to the high court, Cunningham refused to give a definitive answer.
Moderator asks Cal Cunningham whether Joe Biden should release a list of SCOTUS candidates and he REFUSES to answer. #NCSenateDebate pic.twitter.com/vRR2g9W30P
— Joanna Rodriguez (@joannamrod) September 22, 2020
Cunningham unintentionally made a great argument for filling the seat vacated by the late Justice Ginsburg, pointing out that “elections have consequences,” and citing the Senate’s role of giving “advice and consent” on judicial nominees.
Sen. Tillis saw right through Cunningham’s avoidance of a simple, relevant question about his party's nominee for president, and attributed the obvious deflection to the inevitable “radical direction” of the high court with Biden selecting justices.
“Joe Biden does not want to put a list forward,” Tillis said in response. “Why can’t the American people know now, what Joe Biden is thinking with respect to the future of the court? It’s a court that will not defend our second amendment. It’s a court that will take us down a radical left path.”
Cunningham argued that the vacancy should be left untouched until the new Congress is seated, insisting that Biden’s presence on the ballot gives voters the ability to decide, but continued to ignore the fact that Biden has given minimal insight as to who he would nominate to the Supreme Court.
If Cunningham and other Democrats want to argue that voters should decide who nominates the next Supreme Court Justice, Biden should afford voters the same transparency that President Trump has by releasing a list of potential appointees, and Democrats should press their nominee to do so.