President Obama Nominates Merrick Garland For Supreme Court


SUBMITTED BY: mschosting

DATE: March 17, 2016, 11:33 p.m.

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  1. President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the deceased Justice Antonin Scalia. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to block the nomination until after the 2016 elections, President Obama is attempting to portray Garland as a centrist who has achieved bipartisan support in the past and should be given a fair hearing:
  2. President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court is already making telephone calls to senators, hoping to win a confirmation hearing. Merrick Garland will start making in-person visits to the Capitol on Thursday. That's the normal order of business for a high-court nominee. But with many Senate Republicans insisting they won't consider Garland's nomination, the White House is also taking its case to the American public.
  3. The PR campaign for Garland includes a dedicated Twitter handle (@scotusnom), a feel-good biographical video and a litany of details designed to humanize the well-regarded appellate judge. Not only did Garland graduate with honors from Harvard, the White House noted, he sold his comic book collection to help pay the tuition.
  4. "I'd like to take a minute to introduce Merrick to the American people," the president said in the Rose Garden. He highlighted Garland's record as a prosecutor who helped bring Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to justice, and a jurist who's won praise from conservatives including John Roberts and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
  5. Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight argues that the Republican Senate may be passing up an opportunity with the relatively center-left nominee Merrick Garland. If betting markets are to be believed, a Democrat (likely Hillary Clinton) has a much better chance of becoming President than a Republican (likely Donald Trump), possibly with a Democratic-controlled Senate in tow. Blocking the nomination could also hurt the Republican Party politically in November, at least according to wishful Democratic strategists as well as polls showing that a majority of Americans want the nominee to be considered. If the Senate refuses to hold confirmation hearings now, they could ultimately vote in a more liberal justice in 2017, and more down the line.
  6. Profile at NYT. Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution.

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