While that’s true, it may be because few vacancies have occurred in a presidential election year. The sole reason for his obstruction has nothing to do with the superb qualifications of Judge Merrick Garland, nothing to do with the voice of “the American people”, and everything to do with political calculation. Citing a recent Monmouth poll that found almost 70 percent of people think the Senate should give Obama’s choice a fair shake, Schumer predicted that Garland would get a hearing. But what he said is perfectly faithful to the principle of an independent judiciary: a court answerable not to political pressure but only to its own collective judgment of what the Constitution allows or forbids.
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Six of those, including Toomey, face reelection. The last four justices to join the court, two appointed by President Obama and two by President George W. Bush, were confirmed in an average of 75 days.
Williams agreed with Norton on Thomas, saying, “We have three women on the Supreme Court that we as Blacks can depend more than the one Black male”.
WASHINGTON | Exasperated by a long-running fight over judicial nominees, a Republican senator pleaded with his colleagues to confirm Merrick Garland to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, often considered the second most important court in the nation.
“Sen. Toomey hasn’t changed his stance and is ready to let Donald Trump select the next Supreme Court justice”, Sabrina Singh, spokeswoman for Katie McGinty, said in a statement.
Those qualities, Schumer predicted, will convince Republicans to launch the confirmation process required to elevate Garland, an appellate judge and former prosecutor, to the Supreme Court. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee that would hold confirmation hearings, have said they might meet with Garland as a courtesy.
GOP senators have repeatedly used a 1992 Biden speech, in which he argued the Senate should delay consideration of a hypothetical high court nominee until after that year’s elections, to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy.
“In the Senate, I think it’s our obligation to cast a vote when a nominee is presented or nominated”, Casey said, declining to offer many specifics about what he and Garland discussed on Tuesday. He was the man whose ruling in Marbury v. Madison established the right of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide a law’s constitutionality, elevating the court to coequal status with the other two branches of government. She reiterated her view that the Senate should follow the “normal process”. The Senate should ensure that nominees are qualified, he said, and leave politics out of it.
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But Republicans won’t make it easy. It’s our job to ask these questions not only for ourselves, but on behalf of the American people. The court considers too many critical issues, from voting rights to environmental protection to the rights of workers and, for it to remain short-staffed for what could be an entire year or more.
