Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is calling on Republican voters to vote out two GOP senators who have said no action should be taken to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg until after the Nov. 3 election.
"If Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are going to withhold their vote for the president's nominee, then Republicans in those states should withhold their votes from them," Gaetz told Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard in a column posted Monday. "What good are Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski if we can't count on them to fulfill their obligation to advise and consent during the term in which they've been elected."
Both Collins of Maine and Murkowski of Alaska are facing tough reelection bids.
Collins, who has served in the Senate since 1997, is the last remaining Republican senator in the Northeast. She voted for Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and now faces a Democratic challenger after threats from the left to oust her if she voted in favor.
Murkowski, who has served since being appointed by her father Frank Murkowski in 2002 when he left the seat to become Alaska governor, voted against Kavanaugh.
Gaetz told the Examiner that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has vowed to get a vote on Trump's nominee "this year," had better follow through.
"The court is his legacy. So if the court is McConnell's legacy, he sure as hell better deliver on the president's nominee," he said.
He added Republicans should have voted in 2016 on Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, even if it was to vote him down. That, Gaetz said, would have taken them out of the position of being called hypocritical now.
"And I think there were plenty of reasons to vote against Merrick Garland, but that was a mistake then, and it puts us in a worse position now," he said.
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