And that was exactly the case, as some Republicans who were adamant about President Obama not picking someone deciding they will hear what Garland has to say.
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The dean of Harvard’s Law School said Wednesday that Judge Garland is, “An outstanding, meticulous and thoughtful judge with a superb career of public service”. “Garland, 63, has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997 and previously served in the Justice Department under Democratic President Bill Clinton”. He’s been considered for the Supreme Court twice before, but not nominated.
After saying last month the next President should choose Justice Antonin Scalia’s successor, Ayotte said in a Wednesday interview she would meet with Garland “out of courtesy and respect”.
“A majority of the Senate has chose to fulfill its constitutional role of advice and consent by withholding support for the nomination during a presidential election year”.
President said his choice deserved a full hearing and Senate confirmation vote.
Appearing on Wednesday’s Wolf show to discuss President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland for the U.S. Supreme Court, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin characterized Republican resistance to confirming him as not being about “principle”, but “power” instead. They don’t want to get dragged into discussing a particular person, for worry that it would make it hard for the GOP to keep a united front against considering the nomination at all.
President Obama has done his job; now Senate Republicans should do theirs. People are tweeting at various GOP Senate accounts with this hashtag.
Scalia, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, was a staunch conservative, whose passing left the bench equally divided along party lines.
“Give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy”, he said. It would be an affront not just to Obama, whom Republican leaders have vowed to stymie at every turn, but to the Constitution. Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1992, called on then-President George H.W. Bush not to make a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. Garland, by contrast, is older than most of the recent Supreme Court justices at the time of their nomination.
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As a federal judge, Garland has already been confirmed once by the Senate.
