Obama said that Supreme Court justices are ideally “objective” and “able to execute their duties in a way that gives everybody, both the winning party and the losing party in any given case, the sense they were treated fairly”.
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Senator Lindsey Graham of SC acknowledged Republicans were setting a precedent that would block consideration of any nominee by presidents in their final year in office.
Using the standard applied by the Senate GOP, Frosh suggested that Grassley and other senators whose terms end this year shouldn’t have their votes counted for the remainder of the year.
In his search for a Supreme Court nominee, President Barack Obama is zeroing in on a small group of appellate court judges whose bipartisan credentials and traditional judicial pedigree the White House hopes will increase pressure on Republicans vowing to block whomever Obama nominates in an election year.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia, a Reagan court appointee who died last month, “served a quarter of a century after Ronald Reagan left the White House and ten years after Ronald Reagan died”. Schneiderman said a divided Supreme Court could mean you have different laws in different parts of the country.
Democrats cite recent polls showing majorities of Americans favor hearings, which they say means GOP senators in tight races must change their positions or face defeat this fall.
“I think it’s important for me to nominate a Supreme Court nominee quickly because I think it’s important for the Supreme Court to have its full complement of justices”, he said during a White House news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Even in a normal confirmation environment, there will be many types of arguments available to opponents, said Michael Gottlieb, a former White House lawyer who is now a partner at the Washington firm of Boies, Schiller and Flexnor.
Judge Jane Kelly from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has also reportedly been considered. “That’s it. Plain and simple”, Grassley said.
Complaining of the broken appropriations process under Democrats, also in 2014, Blunt said: “We have lost touch with the normal order of things”. “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”, Obama said.
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Thursday’s business meeting of the Judiciary Committee was the first such meeting since Scalia’s death was announced February 13, creating the vacancy. Democrats blasted the Grassley and the Republican leadership, accusing them of failing their duty to the Constitution.
