WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders, trying to slam shut any prospects for an election-year Supreme Court confirmation, said Tuesday that they would not even meet with President Barack Obama's nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, urged the president to reconsider even submitting a name.
At the same time, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans issued a letter unanimously rejected any confirmation hearings.
The actions of Senate Republican leaders and the committee of jurisdiction sent a clear signal to Obama and wavering Republicans that their ranks would not crack. It also thrust the Senate into unprecedented territory; Senators meet with high-court nominees as matters of courtesy and cordiality, but even that tradition has been rejected.
Instead, Republican leaders vowed they would not even consider Obama's nominee regardless of his or her qualifications.
Democrats lashed out but seemed powerless to force Republicans to alter course.
"The Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body?" the Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, asked, railing against the Republicans. "They're not going to deliberate at all."
But McConnell showed no sign of relenting to the pressure Obama and Senate Democrats were trying to apply.
"This is his moment," McConnell said on the Senate floor, addressing the president. "He has every right to nominate someone. Even if doing so will inevitably plunge our nation into another bitter and avoidable struggle, that is his right. Even if he never expects that nominee to actually be confirmed but rather to wield as an electoral cudgel, that is his right."
McConnell added: "But he also has the right to make a different choice. He can let the people decide and make this an actual legacy-building moment rather than just another campaign roadshow."
Obama has made clear that he will choose a nominee, and two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, have already broken ranks to say that they would be willing to vote on a candidate.
As Republican senators emerged from a meeting in McConnell's office, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, said, "We believe that the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame-duck president."