Pompeo blasts Moran over Supreme Court flip

Rep. Mike Pompeo has again criticized Sen. Jerry Moran for changing positions on Senate consideration of President Obama’s nominee for a vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

The latest statement, issued Monday under Pompeo’s congressional letterhead and posted on Pompeo’s government website, blasted Moran for a “tardy conversion” to opposing Senate hearings on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Moran initially supported holding hearings for Garland, the chief judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, but then backed away under pressure from Republican senators who have vowed to block any Obama nominee.

Chapman Rackaway, professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, said the tone of Pompeo’s statement matched online ads from right-wing tea party groups that Pompeo is “in tight with,” so it’s not a complete surprise.

But he added: “Pompeo is a pretty smooth and smart politician, and normally he doesn’t throw this much weight around. This is stronger language than I’m used to seeing from him.”

Pompeo’s statement raised the “L” and “D” words in relation to Moran, who led the 2014 GOP takeover of the Senate as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“His (Moran’s) previous statement on the Supreme Court nomination process was identical to the liberal Democrat talking point,” Pompeo’s statement said. “Senator Moran had said repeatedly that a hearing was necessary because ‘(he, Senator Moran) needed to do his job.’ What changed? In fact, nothing.”

The stinging statement was much stronger than one Pompeo made last week when Moran actually was on the opposite side of the issue.

Pompeo’s original response came via Twitter and was fairly polite by comparison: “@JerryMoran pls reconsider. Constitution does not require hearing on #SCOTUS nominee & conservative principles demand no hearing be held.”

A Pompeo spokesman would not say whether Pompeo is mulling a Senate run, but didn’t discount it either.

“Mike is currently focused on representing the people of the 4th District,” said Jim Richardson, who was Pompeo’s campaign manager in 2014. “He will serve however best the people of Kansas want him to.”

Rackaway said it’s doubtful Pompeo will challenge Moran on the ballot, and it’s late in the process to try.

“I think what Pompeo wants to do is have his name thrown around as a possible challenger to Moran,” Rackaway said, because that would raise his profile outside his district for a possible statewide campaign in the future.

Pompeo said not acting on Obama’s nomination “is doing one’s job every bit as much as holding the hearing, to which Senator Moran was publicly committed just three days ago.”

“As elected officials, we should never say one thing in Cimarron, Kansas and something else in the social parlors of Washington, D.C.,” Pompeo’s statement said.

Moran’s office said in a statement that the two lawmakers have worked together on numerous issues benefiting Pompeo’s district.

“I wouldn’t have expected him to run against me without the courtesy of a conversation,” Moran said in the statement.

Moran, an affable politician who has built his career around local “town hall” meetings in every county he represents, is generally considered more moderate than Kansas' House representatives, all of whom are Republicans.

Moran is ending his first Senate term. He won the seat in 2010, beating the more conservative Todd Tiahrt – Pompeo’s predecessor as the representative from the Wichita-based 4th District – in the primary. Moran faced only token opposition from Democrats.

So far, the only candidates to file for this year’s Senate race are Democrats: lawyer Patrick Wiesner of Lawrence and Monique Singh-Bey of Wyandotte County, who is associated with the Universal African Peoples Organization.

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 8:14 PM with the headline "Pompeo blasts Moran over Supreme Court flip."