“Our advice was the same as Vice President (Joe) Biden gave in 1992” when he was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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The White House says Garland has more federal judicial experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in history, and that he’s known for building consensus. This cynical ignorance of the Senate’s constitutional duties is one of the main reasons why Republicans deserve to lose their majority.
Sen. Charles Grassley Senator Grassley at a news conference.
Obama announced his nominee at a Rose Garden ceremony; Democratic Senate leaders and allies were in attendance.
“Certainly we are justified in waiting”, Flake said in a “CBS This Morning” interview.
“I think it would be a mistake”, the Texas Republican said when asked about considering the nominee in a lame-duck session after the elections.
McConnell has refused to meet with Garland. He says it’s not about the nominee, but about the process.
Judge Garland will head to Capitol Hill to begin meeting with Senators, one by one on Thursday. He said he would talk about possibly meeting with Garland after Easter.
Opposition by most Republicans means Garland’s confirmation remains an uphill climb. But Slaughter doesn’t want hearings to go without addressing what she sees as a major question about the Supreme Court itself – whether Garland supports requiring justices of the nation’s highest court to adopt a binding code of ethics.
Garland has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for the past 19 years, and has been the court’s chief judge since 2013. He previously oversaw the Oklahoma City bombing investigation in 1995, which left 168 people dead.
Property tycoon Donald Trump is now leading the field for the Republican nomination, while former secretary of state Hilary Clinton is likely to take the Democrat nomination. On criminal defence and national security cases, he has sided often with prosecutors.
In a foreshadowing of the pressure campaign the White House and its allies plan to wage in the coming weeks, the White House noted that seven current Republican U.S. senators voted to confirm Judge Garland to the D.C. circuit court in 1997.
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“Judge Merrick Garland seems like a good man”, Long said. “I wish they’d rethink it. Because it’s our Constitution, and that’s how it operates”.
