US Senate(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a Supreme Court justice could resign as soon as this summer.
“I would expect a resignation this summer,” the Iowa senator said, according to the Muscatine Journal. Grassley’s comments came during a Q&A at a visit to Kent Corporation in Muscatine, Iowa.
Without naming a justice, Grassley said an upcoming resignation is “rumored.”
The oldest justices on the court are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 84, Anthony Kennedy, 80, and Stephen Breyer, 78.
If a resignation did happen, President Trump would likely nominate a conservative judge as a replacement, tilting the court even more to the right.
The court is back at full attendance with nine sitting justices, after Neil Gorsuch was sworn in on April 10 as the 113th Supreme Court justice.
This past year, the Senate faced a bitter battle over replacing the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the nation’s highest court. In pushing Gorsuch through the confirmation process, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the “nuclear option” – lowering the threshold of a 60-vote simple majority to 51 votes to confirm Supreme Court nominees.
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