However, moments after Obama made his selection, prominent Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said there’d be no vote on Copeland, and that the selection of the next justice should be the responsibility of the next president.
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Vitter, a member of the committee, has joined with other Senate Republicans in vowing not to act on any nominee submitted by President Obama.
Obama urged GOP senators to reconsider their position as they return to their districts later this week.
Local political leaders are weighing in after President Barack Obama put forth his nomination Wednesday for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We can not, in my judgment, let President Obama make an appointment that would tilt the court to the left and have the Republican majority in the Senate confirm that”, he said. Hatch is said to have called Garland a “consensus nominee” for the Supreme Court back in 2010 when the president interviewed Garland for the court, but chose Elena Kagan instead. Meeting with a justice nominee is just one part of a process.
“I was truly impressed by the judge’s comments, his decency, his balance, his life story, his background – all suggest a nominee eminently qualified to serve on the Supreme Court”, said Coons.
Cotton said he respects Obama’s right to nominate someone to the Supreme Court, “but the stakes are high, and we can not rush this decision”. Elizabeth Warren praised the new appointee-D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland-noting the bi-partisan commendations received by the 63-year-old Harvard Law School graduate.
Republicans want to delay confirmation, in hopes that a Republican is elected president and will nominate a conservative justice.
“A liberal appointee will reinterpret the Constitution beyond its meaning – denying citizens the right to vote for legislators to develop laws”, he said in a statement.
One side believes it’s Obama’s job to nominate a candidate while he’s in office. Losing a staunchly conservative voice on the Supreme Court threatens the court’s conservative tilt, making the next justice all the more important. We’ll soon learn if Senate Republicans, as expected, will fail to live up to their own.
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“If Republicans choose to shirk their constitutional duty, I’m not sure why they’re even in the Senate”, Franken said. In his speech at the Rose Garden, Garland said: “My family deserves much of the credit for the path that led me here”.
