WASHINGTON — Forget judicial restraint. The fight over a vacant Supreme Court seat is escalating to include every campaign weapon imaginable.
Ads are targeting key senators. Partisans are raising money off the conflict. The White House, adopting a practice from past trade and health care battles, is specifically wooing regional reporters. Opposition researchers are digging in.
“There are some politics involved, I’m not denying that,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday, adding that “it’s not unreasonable for some politics to be played here.”
The maneuvering over President Barack Obama’s third Supreme Court nomination will reclaim center stage Tuesday, when Obama meets with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
Topic A for the Oval Office meeting, which will also include top Senate Democrats and Vice President Joe Biden, will be the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
But with McConnell and Grassley both publicly declaring they won’t consider Obama’s eventual nominee, the rare White House meeting with Republican leaders is only one, possibly ineffectual, front among many.
Advocates on all sides have taken to the airwaves and Internet. The conservative Judicial Crisis Network, for one, is promoting what it calls a “seven-figure television, radio and digital advertising campaign,” urging senators to delay.
The targeted senators include Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey and several others up for re-election in swing states, where party loyalties can waver.
“The first round was thanking the senators for standing with the American people,” Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said in an interview Monday. “We’ll be going forward with more.”
Severino said the ads will buttress “senators who would be targeted by Democrats.”
Toomey, for instance, is facing equal pressure from the left, with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party on Monday declaring that his refusal to even meet with an Obama nominee is “completely at odds with the constitutional process and the expectations of Pennsylvanians.”
A Democratic political action committee called the House Majority PAC on Monday likewise circulated an email complaining that Republicans are “digging in their heels and refusing to even hold a hearing on whomever President Obama nominates to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.”
Recipients were then directed to quick links for making contributions ranging from $5 to $100, or an unspecified “other amount.”
The conservative FreedomWorks organization, meanwhile, has touted the fact that “our community sent more than 15,000 messages to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office urging him to stand strong against an Obama nominee.”
From the left, MoveOn.org is deploying Twitter to bombard senators with the DoYourJob hashtag, while the Alliance for Justice commissioned a poll of voters in eight battleground states and plans to release the results Wednesday.
Obama spent a “significant period of time” over the weekend reviewing material and considering potential nominees, but the White House is “not at a place yet where the list has been closed,” Earnest said.
He said there is no timeline, but noted that it previously took about 30 days for the administration to put forth a nominee.
The White House also put Brian Deese, a senior adviser to Obama, in charge of a White House team that will oversee the confirmation process. He’ll work closely with White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, who will lead the all-important vetting.
Earnest noted that Obama has relied on Deese “in a variety of critical situations,” including helping to secure the auto industry bailout and the climate change agreement that was reached in Paris.
Deese is also expected to stay in touch with Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama adviser who is working with outside groups to bolster support for the White House efforts.
“Filling a Supreme Court vacancy is a consequential undertaking, and a lot of different organizations and citizens have a vested interest in that outcome,” Earnest said.
Earnest said Cutter’s role with the outside interest groups would “make it easier, where appropriate and where necessary, for the White House to coordinate with those outside groups.” He added that Cutter will not be paid by the White House.
The White House effort includes, as well, the use of tailored press briefings designed to reach hometown audiences. Late Monday afternoon, augmenting the day’s earlier regularly scheduled briefing, Earnest convened more than a dozen regional reporters to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy.
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