Washington (CNN)Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said Thursday he’d be willing to meet with Judge Merrick Garland, but firmly rejected the idea of considering his nomination to the Supreme Court even in a lame-duck session of Congress.
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Even The New York Times reported that “A Supreme Court with Merrick Garland Would Be the Most Liberal in Decades”, and America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has signaled their support for him.
Making what he called “an obvious point”, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the two parties disagreed over filling the vacancy and that it was time for lawmakers to turn to move on.
President Obama said the Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics and failing to hold hearings and a vote would demonstrate the nominating process is “beyond fix”.
Flake, who previously endorsed Republican colleague Marco Rubio in his party’s presidential primary, also commented on the state of the White House race, saying he would consider endorsing a different candidate now that Rubio has suspended his campaign.
In his email, Obama said his nominee will be “eminently qualified” to sit on the nation’s highest court. “The Senate Republican leadership can not afford to break this important promise to their conservative, pro-life base if they expect us to vote for any of them ever again”.
Garland was chosen by Obama to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.
Garland’s nomination may disappoint avid liberals.
The president said Merrick is a hard-working public servant; he highlighted his work leading the investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing.
Opposition by most Republicans means Garland’s confirmation remains an uphill climb. In fact, he was opposed by nearly a quarter of the Senators who voted on his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court in 1997, and some of Judge Garland’s most recent opinions and dissents raises serious questions about his ability to serve as a constitutionalist. Or, to put it another way, he’d be the least bad option they could hope for from a Democratic president.
The Senators have said they do not plan to vet or hold hearings on the nominee, and say the next President should choose the new judge on the nine-member bench.
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Republicans have approached the Supreme Court vacancy from the newly discovered – but very deeply and sincerely felt – principle that the voters must decide who gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice.
