On Friday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) found out he had tested positive for the coronavirus. On Monday, he said that even that won’t stop him from safely voting to confirm Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
“I feel perfectly fine,” Sen. Johnson said Monday in a radio interview on 630 KHOW. “I have been very cautious,” and Congress has taken great precautions, Johnson added.
Neither his diagnosis nor others’ coronavirus concerns should stop the Senate hearings and vote on Judge Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, Sen. Johnson said.
“We’ve learned to conduct the business of the Senate over the Internet,” Sen. Johnson said.
But, if he has to go in to vote in person, he’s willing to don a “moon suit” if that’s what he has to do, the senator said:
“We all use the internet, it's a great device. So is the telephone. But, if we have to go in and vote, I've already told the leadership, I'll go in in a moon suit. We think this is pretty important.”
Even if he tested positive for the coronavirus the day before the vote to confirm Barrett, Sen. Johnson promised that he’d find a way to cast his vote:
“I would certainly try to find a way (to vote), making sure that everybody was safe.”
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“Where there is a will, there’s a way. We can do these things.”
“There's no reason we can't confirm Judge Barrett even, quite honestly, if we had to vote electronically,” though that would be difficult because “We’d have to change the rules of the Senate,” Sen. Johnson said.