Top Republican floats Cruz as Supreme Court pick
A senior Republican House lawmaker on Tuesday suggested Ted Cruz as a possible Supreme Court pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia should Cruz fail to win the GOP presidential nomination.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) laid out the idea during an interview on Fox Business Network when asked about the possibility of Donald Trump and Cruz uniting on a White House ticket.
{mosads}”I think it’s possible, whether it’s Trump and Cruz or, you know, Cruz could be the Scalia replacement,” Scalise said.
“Oh, look, if he’s not our nominee, I think he would be a great replacement for Scalia,” Scalise added of Cruz later when pressed about the possibility of the Texas senator being named to the court.
“There’s a role for him either way, whether he’s the nominee. … But at the end of the day I think he and Donald Trump have to come together for the good of the country,” Scalise said.
Senate Republicans have vowed to not hold hearings in a presidential election year to confirm Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, who died in February.
Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who previously clerked at the Supreme Court, insisted during a CBS News interview in early March that becoming a Supreme Court justice is “not a job I’m interested in,” saying he was more focused on nominating justices to the court.
Cruz is running second in the overall delegate count behind Trump for the GOP nomination and has partnered with rival John Kasich in an effort to keep Trump below the 1,237 votes necessary to secure the nomination before July’s Republican National Convention.
“I still think it’s a very winnable race, and I think it’s a two-person race” between Trump and Cruz, Scalise said Tuesday on Fox Business.
Scalise said he believes it would be a “mistake for anybody” other than Trump or Cruz to be nominated at the party’s convention.
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