President Barack Obama says he’s holding out hope that “cooler heads will prevail” and Republicans will back down from plan to block a Supreme Court nominee.
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The ad marks an early attempt by Democrats to use GOP opposition to a Supreme Court nominee against vulnerable Republicans ahead of November elections.
Grassley, who holds the power to take up Obama’s coming Supreme Court nomination, told his colleagues on the panel Thursday that he is determined not to act on any nominee and criticized Democrats for “misguided logic” in trying to apply political pressure on him personally.
Democrats and liberals have focused on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republican senators seeking re-election this fall in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Regardless of what some are willing to admit publicly, everybody knows any nominee submitted in the middle of this presidential campaign isn’t getting confirmed.
Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC, similarly joined an amicus brief with more than 325 immigration groups, civil rights, labor and social service organizations in urging the court to uphold the Obama administration’s executive actions. “I’m confident that whoever I select, among fair-minded people, will be viewed as an imminently qualified person, and it will then be up to Senate Republicans to decide whether they want to follow the Constitution and abide by the rules of fair play that ultimately undergird our democracy and that ensure that the Supreme Court does not just become one more extension of our polarized politics”.
He added: “We’ve been up front and very clear, but in case there is any confusion over whether this political ploy would work, let me be perfectly clear: It won’t work”. Mitch McConnell, had a closed-door meeting with GOP members of the Judiciary Committee, during which all 11 signed a leader pledging to block any hearings on an Obama nominee. Sen.
Obama responded to Thursday’s Senate clash by repeating his assertion that the Constitution clearly states a nomination should be made – and that Republicans opposing such a move are behaving in a hypocritical manner.
Johnson said Thursday in the WEKZ interview that “if a conservative president’s replacing a conservative justice, there’s a little more accommodation to it”.
A Senate hearing about the Department of Justice quickly turned into speeches about the Supreme Court.
“We are setting a precedent here”, Graham said. Republicans solidified their position after their majority leader, Sen.
Lankford said he’s heard “overwhelming” hyperbole in the recent debate surrounding the high court vacancy.
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Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said that if the roles were reversed, with an outgoing Republican president and a sitting Democratic-controlled Congress, she would feel “honor-bound” to consider a nominee, while Senator Lindsey Graham of SC came to the opposite conclusion.
