Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland has passed the legendary Louis Brandeis in one area – the longest wait between a nomination and a confirmation approval to the Court.
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In Garland’s case, he could set a record that may stand for some time, considering the earliest his nomination process in Congress would be in the Senate’s lame-duck session after the November elections.
Judge Garland, who now sits on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was nominated 125 days ago.
Yet despite Obama’s decision to nominate a man who he calls, “respected on both sides of the aisle”, the Republican-dominated Senate continues to refuse to grant Garland a confirmation hearing, instead hoping that Obama’s successor will make a new choice – assuming that that choice is more conservative.
The Senate held the first-ever Judiciary Hearing on a Supreme Court nomination to consider Brandeis for the Court.
Republicans who are blocking the Garland nomination say Democrats’ claims of partisanship are hypocritical.
The Republican-led Senate has refused to meet with Garland since President Obama nominated him on March 16 to fill the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia’s death.
GOP critics have not criticized Garland’s views – which are widely seen as centrist – but rather Obama’s unexpected chance to nominate another justice before leaving the White House. The court’s tied vote upheld a lower court’s ruling that barred Obama’s plan, which would have prevented the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.
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On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed written by Obama, decrying the Senate’s immobility on the issue and arguing that it sets a unsafe precedent for making the Court “a proxy for political parties”, with “resulting lack of trust [that] can undermine the rule of law”.
