He also spoke about President Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland and the nomination process.
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“Based upon the type of people he’d be looking for, I think I would expect the right type of people to be nominated by him to the Supreme Court”, Grassley said, according to the paper.
Judicial Crisis Network has already spent upwards of $4 million and launched an email campaign combating Garland’s nomination, Politico reports, noting that conservative pressure could help Democrats in tricky states, too.
Given this unjustified obstruction, a quixotic idea is starting to gain steam: President Obama does not have to wait for the Senate to act on Judge Garland’s nomination.
Others are standing their ground, though. The accompanying analysis noted, “Ayotte’s support for the Senate Republican leadership’s refusal to hold a hearing on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland appears to have hurt her in the eyes of voters”.
But not all conservatives agree.
And McConnell himself isn’t budging.
“While I’m glad to see Democrats concede that there won’t be a Democrat in the White House next year, Republicans continue to believe that the American people should have a voice in this decision and the next president should make the nomination”, Stewart said. Because Trump is “not a reliable, consistent conservative”, his nominee could be just as distasteful to conservatives as Mrs. Clinton’s, if she were to be elected.
Wolf also raises concerns that President Obama could rescind his nomination of Garland and choose someone more liberal. The founders endeavored to make the third branch the apolitical branch, but over the past 230 years, and more acutely in the last 30, that demarcation has broken down. Sen. Their less-spoken logic is that the conservative base would be inflamed by the prospect of a fifth vote appointed by a Democrat outweighs any other political cost they’ll pay.
Garland looks to the left, wondering if he’s a little closer to a hearing.
If you place even odds on Republicans taking back the White House, then blocking Garland means they’ll get, on average, a 5 (50 percent times 2 plus 50 percent times 8). “After all, they favor judges who do the same thing”. Suppose there’s a 75 percent chance Clinton wins. And in that comparison, Garland’s clearly better.
On March 17, Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) defended the GOP decision to stonewall President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court. That assumption may be faulty.
The Republican Party has dug its own grave.
Adding further insult to the intelligence of the American electorate, the Repubs say they might vote on Garland in a lame duck session, if the 2016 presidential election doesn’t go their way; to forestall an event where they might be faced with a “liberal” nominee (Garland is a centrist) nominated by the next democratic president. Lindsey Graham or Nebraska Sen.
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After glimpsing such numbers, many Republicans have concluded that the party should focus on preventing down-ballot candidates from drowning in a great blue wave this fall.
