Senator Claire McCaskill (R-Missouri) has met with Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee.
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McCaskill says Garland deserves a nomination hearing. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, in Brown’s office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 7, 2016. They discussed privacy, campaign-finance laws and the politicization of the courts, she said. I know him personally, I know of his integrity, I know of his legal ability, I know of his honesty, I know of his acumen, and he belongs on the court. “People wring their hands and say, ‘Oh, that’s bad, you shouldn’t bring politics into it.’ How do you not bring politics into it?” “And I consider that my job just as much as consenting”.
The appointment of Garland has heightened the already fractious political divide between Democrats and Republicans in Washington, because he could alter the court’s philosophical balance.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee which considers judicial nominations, and the Senate Democratic leadership, joined by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., holds up a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. But there has been no shift in the GOP’s stance on his nomination.
The resilience of the blockade has left Democrats facing questions about what maneuvers they have left to compel Republicans, whose leaders are secure in their belief that allowing hearings on Garland would be more politically disastrous then not allowing them, to change course.
A major case the Supreme Court will hear Monday will determine the fate of programs Obama created to provide work authorizations and safeguards from deportation to a wider range of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and their parents. Seventy-two senators, including many Democrats, overrode the filibuster effort and Alito was confirmed. Judge Garland, the senator said, would not “be aggressive in acting as a check on an administration”. After the election, I look forward to considering the nominee of our new president.
Both Risch and his colleague U.S. Sen.
Murray rejected the comparison, noting Alito was not denied due consideration in the Senate. Chuck Grassley of Iowa met with him too. I listened to the entire hearing.
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“We had a very cordial meeting, and I enjoyed the opportunity to meet him”, Sen. Any nominee, he said, would need to make it “crystal clear” that he or she would vote to overturn Citizens United.
