Senator Collins is one of a handful of Republicans in the U.S. Senate who have agreed to meet with Judge Merrick, who is now chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Advertisement
Even before the president’s formal announcement in the Rose Garden, Senate Republicans were coming under intensified pressure to at least hold hearings and a confirmation vote, pressure that will only grow in coming days as Garland becomes a frequent presence at the Capitol.
On Wednesday, Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the vacant seat.
David Paul said he supports Obama’s constitutional right to make a nomination, but added the Senate has the same right to check that nomination.
West central Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler is among many Republicans hoping to stall the process until after the presidential election, in hopes that a Republican president will choose a conservative justice.
President Obama named an appeals court judge from Bethesda as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court.
We are in the middle of a presidential election, and the Senate majority is giving the American people a voice to determine the direction of the Supreme Court.
“That’s the principle we said, let the people decide and have a voice”, said Grassley.
“The president has done his job in nominating this exemplary jurist”, Klobuchar said.
“I will, in DE, be spending time reading into his record, reading the case law, reading up on his biography and getting a deeper and better sense of him”, said Coons, who also plans to set up a meeting with Garland. Garland is generally considered a moderate, and Obama said he was setting aside “short-term expediency and narrow politics” in order to fill the court and prevent a breakdown in the confirmation process.
Montana’s US senators generally followed party lines with their response to President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination Wednesday. “It’s the duty of the senate to provide advice and consent”, said Franken.
Voteview.com highlights how the odds are stacked against Garland; Senate Republicans have moved substantially to the right since ’97. “I would want to explain my position to the nominee…I would want to give him that courtesy”.
The Obama administration believed that by picking Garland, who has gotten Republican support in the past, that the Senate would change their minds about not confirming a nominee this year.
Advertisement
Republicans say Garland has been anti-Second Amendment and would tilt the Supreme Court balance to a more liberal court.
