Arizona’s special senate race could keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat empty

Husband?s Hurt: Astronaut Mark Kelly blasted House Speaker John Boehner for failing to see Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the hospital after she was nearly killed in a mass shooting in January. Image by getty images
A special senate race to fill the late Republican Sen. John McCain’s seat in Arizona could be the tipping point in the fight over confirming a Supreme Court Justice to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Democrat Mark Kelly, the former astronaut and husband of ex-Rep Gabby Giffords, who is Jewish, is likely to win a race against Republican Sen. Martha McSally and could get sworn in early, according to state law. That would shrink the Republican Senate majority, slashing the number of necessary GOP defectors from four to three to block a Supreme Court appointment.
Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have already indicated they would decline to tow the party line, and Mitt Romney of Utah might.
The Arizona election is on November 3, but a Superior Court of Arizona ruling on a similar case said that a special election winner “is entitled to take office once the election process is concluded.”
The Senate Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised that “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
This position lies in stark contrast to his blocking of President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. in that case, he stalled, offering the explanation that “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.”
Mark Kelly served as a naval aviator and joined NASA in 1996, piloting space shuttles until 2011. His wife was nearly killed in an assassination attempt in 2011 and the two founded a nonprofit that advocates for gun control.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.