This is also the a year ago of President Obama’s historic presidency.
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A Wall Street Journal editorial unmasked the liberal cover-up over Garland, even while other editorialists, columnists and broadcast news anchors extolled his supposed virtues: “Judge Garland’s 19-year tenure on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals demonstrates a reliable vote for progressive causes, with the arguable exception of criminal law”.
In the coming weeks, I will do my job, too.
Senate Democrats are trying to convince voters it’s a dereliction of constitutional duty for Republicans to block consideration of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, but the little the Constitution actually says about the matter gives the Senate extremely wide latitude in handling nominees.
The Republicans’ opposition to a Supreme Court nominee that they supported for a lower court position has some precedent. In fact, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans want the Senate to hold an up-or-down vote on the nominee.
Yes, Supreme Court nominations have increasingly taken on the aspect of political campaigns, but this was all a tad silly.
But in a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, Americans approve by a 13-point margin of Obama’s decision to nominate Garland, an appellate judge, to the Supreme Court.
Fast forward 19 years and Garland is President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, ensnared in a high-stakes, election-year fight over a vacancy that Republicans insist should be filled by the next president. Now I hope they will reject the party’s obstructionist tactics by demanding hearings and a vote for this outstanding nominee.
When news of Garland’s nomination broke, McCain, R-Arizona, was quick to ally himself with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and other Republicans pushing for a freeze in the nomination process until the November elections. They don’t want the country to hear more about his impeccable, bipartisan credentials – that he edited the Harvard Law Review, clerked for two judges appointed by a Republican president, led the successful prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber, and has been praised by Chief Justice John Roberts and described by Senator Orrin Hatch in 2010 as a “consensus nominee”.
Just 16% of the public agrees that the Senate Republicans are refusing to consider Garland primarily to give the public a say in the nomination.
“This is precisely the time we should treat the appointment of a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness it deserves”. In 1986, Scalia, widely known as a conservative, was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98 to 0.
He also bemoaned the current climate, saying he was “sick and exhausted of the Supreme Court being treated like a political football”. Will they join us in doing our jobs on behalf of the American people? They expect us to do the same. Adherence to the literal meaning of the wording of our Constitution was the touchstone of his “originalist” jurisprudence, but now that it is time for his replacement to be chosen, the “Republicants” in the Senate have decided that they would rather not do what the Constitution so plainly requires them to do.
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Kirk went on to say that Republicans – many of whom have previously lauded Merrick, even going as far as to say he would be a good pick for the high court – should “just man up and cast a vote”. She wrote this for this newspaper.
