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02/16/2016 07:52 AM EDT


By Burgess Everett (@burgessev or beverett@politico.com)

GOP LINES UP BEHIND McCONNELL: Senate Republicans are going all in behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy of spurning a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia until next year. Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania became the latest incumbents from states that President Barack Obama has won to throw in with their leader to bar a new Supreme Court justice, joining Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Mavericks like John McCain are in the same boat, as are senators with no reelection considerations at all, like Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana. Meanwhile, of course, Democrats are predicting that the GOP will lose the Senate over this.

Two polite dissenters: Two of the most moderate Senate Republicans are criticizing both parties on the SCOTUS politicking. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois joined Sen. Susan Collins in this position on Monday, with Kirk releasing a statement saying: "The political debate erupting about prospective nominees to fill the vacancy is unseemly, let us take the time to honor his life before the inevitable debate erupts." My story on Republicans firming up around McConnell: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648fd52d9555ba47b05ff5ada3255d802ec6430e255621c4b8c

REID STRATEGY: This being Minority Leader Harry Reid's last year, he's fixing to make things as tough on Republicans and their 54-seat majority as possible. Reid has spoken to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the vacancy, and he wants the White House to send over a nominee that Republicans would ordinarily support to make them look unreasonable, rather than a more liberal nominee that would have sparked a deadly political conflict no matter when the vacancy occurred. Manu and Ted Barrett for CNN: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c64880b52ff84dd63644dc4c72b87d72ec5491fee0470e24e3b5

Expect the unexpected: Everyone in Washington had been preparing for a vacancy, but speculation always centered around the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rather than the conservative Scalia. In fact, I even wrote an entire story about it at the end of 2014. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6488dedbfeb6bf9bcb2656e21264bccd84e06077cf1395d509f

MAKING THE ARGUMENT -- Reid: Fired up as ever, the Senate Democratic leader turns to the Washington Post op-ed pages to light into McConnell and Senate Republicans. "Pursuing their radical strategy in a quixotic quest to deny the basic fact that the American people elected President Obama - twice - would rank among the most rash and reckless actions in the history of the Senate. And the consequences will reverberate for decades." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6486e21fc03589279432311fcce3517edf4deece01bb1fecdc9

Leahy -- And here's top Judiciary Committee Democrat Patrick Leahy in USA TODAY: "It is false to say that Supreme Court justices do not get confirmed in presidential election years. More than a dozen Supreme Court justices have been confirmed during a presidential election year, and the most recent one was in President Reagan's final year in office." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648e55f2d4efdcb8faea5ae91385385bd9fd09c5c2c98f79713

SCHUMER WARS: Expect to see Sen. Chuck Schumer's old quotes about the Supreme Court used against him on a daily basis this year. "Speaking of politicizing the Supreme Court (see above), Sen. Chuck Schumer always delivers. In July 2007 the New York Democrat gave a speech to a progressive legal society in which he said ... 'We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,' Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington.... Mr. Schumer went on to say that he would recommend to his Senate colleagues 'that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.'" Mr. Schumer and the media may want to forget this as he insists
on replacing Justice Antonin Scalia this year, but there it is." WSJ op-ed: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648fa30e8469e6c64fc3e35771017fd8a282f9a38f2823589f3 (Someone remind them that WSJ is the media, though)

Schumer responds! "Even a quick perusal of the speech shows it provides no cover and that Leader McConnell is comparing apples to oranges. What I said in the speech given in 2007 is simple: Democrats, after a hearing, should entertain voting no if the nominee is out of the mainstream and tries to cover that fact up." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6487cf855ff6f68a9dd4611d613231436cf9511956a52927c32

Top of the morning to you. And welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play guide to everything Capitol Hill, where I'm back from my sweet tea tour Cruz'in around South Carolina. Please send tips to beverett@politico.com and follow along on Twitter @burgessev.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - Both the House and Senate are on recess this week.

TALKING POINTS REFRESHER: Roll Call's got a nice chart of the longest Supreme Court vacancies. There's a good chance if McConnell sticks with it, Scalia's replacement will be the new #1, that with a new president and a potential change in Senate control. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6487635bac2b1e7c86c6c89a421875cc65f72bbb73fbc70f073

HATCH'S DARK JOKE: Sen. Lindsey Graham keeps suggesting that Sen. Orrin Hatch is just the type of Supreme Court nominee that Republicans could live with. And NPR got him on the horn to press him on his availability in a segment aired Monday. "Well, I'd be up for the job but I don't think they're going to appoint an 82-year-old man, and I'm not sure I would want to be appointed and to have all the Democrats praying that I'd die real soon after. But if that happened, I'd live another 20 years just to spite them." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648fd7ba69abb72eb1d6192da1af986516326ac09c79ca7a029

CHUCK GRASSLEY'S QUICK CHANGE OF HEART: WaPo's Dana Milbank flags how the Senate Judiciary chairman quickly fell in behind McConnell after initially deferring on the future of a SCOTUS nomination. Grassley told "Des Moines Register reporter Jason Noble that Scalia had died, responded honorably, saying he didn't want to talk about replacing Scalia yet. 'I wouldn't make any prognostication on anything about the future because there's so many balls in the air when those things are considered.'" McConnell put on his statement shortly thereafter, and "Grassley folded. 'The fact of the matter is that it's been standard practice over the last nearly 80 years that Supreme Court nominees are not
confirmed during a presidential election year.'" http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648fbc86609c2a8ecdd091efba5200e341948864e0825a30cee

BOB AND BOB: The fate of Sen. Robert Menendez's corruption case could rest on how the 4-4 Supreme Court handles the case of disgraced former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell, Josh Gerstein reports. If that court can't come up with five votes to overturn McDonnell's conviction, then he could be sent back to prison. What's that mean for Menendez? "A Supreme Court opinion in McDonnell's favor would be a major aid to Menendez's lawyers in seeking to narrow the charges or the evidence, but likely would not toss the case out altogether. 'It would certainly be helpful to Sen. Menendez, but not having it doesn't seem to be a mortal blow,'" said Hampton Dellinger, a partner at law firm Boies, Schiller &
Flexner who formerly taught campaign finance law at Duke. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6486fb6336ec09ae1622b4c3e5734f8f759fc43a6f0e1a1ad68

HOUSE RACE FALLOUT: Campaign specialist Kevin Robillard flags this News & Observer story on how a deadlocked court could affect the House race redistricting case in North Cackalacka. The case, "which invalidated the state's 1st and 12th congressional districts, is one that could see a different outcome now, legal analysts speculate. Some analysts say Scalia's death makes it much more likely that North Carolina's March 15 primary elections will be delayed - at least in the congressional races. Until a new justice is appointed ... there could be a succession of 4-to-4 vote standoffs among the remaining justices." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c6489670abc96d9a46c6c8c9bd4a15c400bb9f4f6d34de53fd1a

FEMALE SENATORS HIT DOUBLE STANDARD: Per The Hill's Alexander Bolton, Senate Democratic women say Hillary Clinton's often in a no-win situation on the campaign trail. "Many of we women feel that there's a double standard. What's being said about Hillary is what women have heard for centuries. You're too loud, you're too aggressive, you're too pushy. Why do you want the vote?" said Sen. Barbara Mikulski ... "Women go through a magnifying glass that men do not. Look at [GOP presidential frontrunner Donald] Trump. Talk about braggadocio, talk about arrogance, talk about shouting, talk about demeaning, talk about insulting. It's all there," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=85bc20e62905c648e4a3c4eca839f9f34608d0c80aeb3d4c7b5b974297fea6fd

LEFT COAST: Brandon Garrett, the chief of staff for Rep. Robin Kelly, is heading to a private equity firm in Los Angeles for 10 years on the Hill.

FRIDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Joseph Pratt was the first to answer that the Bay Psalm Book is the oldest book printed in what is now the United States, printed in 1640.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - I've got today's question: Six sitting senators were appointed to and installed on the Supreme Court, while one sitting senator was nominated but not confirmed. Name him. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at beverett@politico.com

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