Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock refused to say during Sunday night’s debate whether he would support packing the Supreme Court, a question that dogged President-elect Joe Biden during the last weeks before the election.
“As I move all across the state … people aren’t asking me about the courts and whether we should expand the courts,” Warnock said during the fiery debate with his opponent, incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, ahead of the runoff election for her Georgia Senate seat next month.
“I know that’s an interesting question for people inside the beltway to discuss, but they are wondering when in the world they are going to get some COVID-19 relief,” said Warnock, who is pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.
“I’m really not focused on it,” he added.
During a presidential debate at the end of September, Biden refused to say whether he would support adding justices to the Supreme Court or ending the filibuster should he become president.
“Whatever position I take on that, that’ll become the issue,” Biden said.
Days before the general election, the former vice president promised that if he was elected he would convene a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to examine and weigh in on reforming the court system “because it’s getting out of whack.”
Biden officially endorsed Warnock at the end of October.
Loeffler herself deflected several times on a question about whether she would acknowledge that President Trump lost his reelection bid last month.
“The president has every right to every legal recourse, and that’s what’s taking place,” Loeffler said.
Loeffler and Georgia’s other Republican Senate candidate, Senator David Perdue, are campaigning for the two seats that will decide which political party controls the Senate. Both races are also headed towards runoff elections next month. Republicans have won 50 seats already, but if Democrats win both Georgia seats, incoming vice president Kamala Harris would become the deciding vote.