DENVER — A political crisis is growing over a very important job opening: the next Supreme Court justice.
The question, however, is whether President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans will replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the Nov. 3 election, or if the Senate confirmation vote will be pushed until after the presidential inauguration in January.
With only six weeks until the election, the timeline to replace Ginsburg on the Supreme Court would be fast, but not impossible.
Dr. Robert Preuhs is the chair of the political science department at Metropolitan State University (MSU) of Denver. He said, how this situation has been handled by administrations in the past, doesn't necessarily set a standard for Ginsburg's replacement in 2020 – and, he says, it likely won't.
9NEWS sat down with Preuhs to discuss the replacement process.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for context and clarity.
9NEWS: Are there rules for how fast Ginsburg's replacement can be chosen?
Preuhs: No, it’s up to the president to nominate and the Senate to decide the rules, and they could actually do it within a week if they prefer.
Supreme Court nominations are the ultimate political battle, at least in terms of court nominations, so I really wouldn't expect anything less this time around.
The difference here is that we had a setup in 2016 where the Obama administration was thwarted from nominating a Supreme Court justice – pushing the selection until after that election. So, that's where this has become hyper-political.
The party in charge right now is looking to maintain their gains in the Supreme Court so they’re looking to do this as soon as they possibly can. Particularly, with a very uncertain election outcome for the president in November. The right way might be to wait and use that precedent from 2016, but most of those precedents have been blown up.
How long does the process of appointing a new justice to the Supreme Court usually take?
Depending on the age and the longevity of the nominee, it can have impacts for decades. So the normal process takes about two to three months.
Ironically, the shortest of those was about 50 days with Justice Ginsburg back in 1993. The longest would have been Clarence Thomas that took about 100+ days.
The process is this: the president nominates and gives a name to the Senate. The Senate then assigns that to the judiciary committee and the judiciary committee is in charge of having a hearing.
That includes background checks, calling witnesses, determining the rules and then questioning the nominee themselves which usually takes two to four weeks, depending.
So, all in all, about two to three months.
Is it possible that the timeline could be much faster?
It's certainly not uncommon for context to really drive the timetable. In this case, Republicans are looking to get that seat filled before that potential switch in party control of the presidency.
If someone is selected this week, for instance, I think a feasible timeframe could very well be a month. If the Senate wants to make it happen, it will probably happen.
What do you think is going to happen?
I think we’re going to see a nomination process. I think we’re going to see it soon and I think there will be a vote.
The big question really is, how many Republican members of the Senate decide to say, "hold on we need to wait until the election." And then we'll see potentially a whole other battle depending on the outcome of that election.
We just don't know. In a lot of ways, it's a coin toss.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Politics