President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month.
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Just as they promised, a number of Republican senators are steadfastly ignoring President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, refusing to begin the hearing process or even meet with the candidate.
“I can’t imagine that a Republican-majority Senate, even if it were soon to be a minority, would want to confirm a judge who would move the court dramatically to the left”, McConnell said on “Fox News Sunday”. “The principle is the same, whether it’s before the election or after the election”, McConnell said on Fox News.
Much like the Democratic majority with an exiting President Ronald Reagan in 1988, the Republicans now face the prospect of approving a primarily moderate Supreme Court nominee or leaving it to the next administration. But McConnell says the Republican-run Senate will not have a hearing or a vote on Garland.
Okay, but lets say the GOP establishment’s various election plots don’t pan out, and Hillary Clinton is elected president in November.
“Do Republicans really think Donald Trump will make a good Supreme Court choice?”
Referring to the Alito filibuster, Jentleson said, “No lay person could possibly consider this to be on the same planet as what Republicans are doing to Garland”.
But there’s also a way in which Garland could end up actually making it to the Court – not because the White House managed to outmaneuver Republicans, but because they decided that confirming him was the best of their options. “And I am telling everybody that’s watching this, the senators aren’t going to allow that”, Reid said. That has opened up the floor to debate and lobbying to occur on both sides – for and against pushing the Senate to meet with and vote on Garland, something which normally happens over a few days following a nomination, according to the Guardian.
On the same show, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough responded: “We think it’s clear in the constitution that when there is a vacancy the president proposes a nominee and that’s been practice for decades or centuries”.
Are the Republicans going to get caught in another Obama-orchestrated trap? By nominating Garland, the Obama administration has put the GOP in a real bind. Then they go before a vote in the committee and a vote in the Senate. But if it’s looking more likely that Clinton is going to win, and if more chatter about the above endgame arises, Republicans might feel more inclined to confirm Obama’s nominee before the election.
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“But at a time when our politics are so polarized, when norms and customs of our political rhetoric seem to be corroding – this is precisely the time we should treat the appointment of a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness it deserves”.
