The White House is casting the Senate Judiciary Committee posting Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland’s questionnaire on its website as a sign that Republicans are softening their stance against even holding hearings.
Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, submitted the 141-page document, and its 2,066 pages of appendices, on Tuesday. Shortly after, the full document went online.
“[W]e certainly were pleased to see the Senate Judiciary Committee accept the questionnaire and post it on their website. That is consistent with the way this process is supposed to work,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
Posting a judicial nominee’s questionnaire results is standard operating procedure for the Senate Judiciary Committee, regardless of the nomination’s status.
The document runs down Garland’s resume, awards, speeches, interviews, memberships, opinions, cases and published writings. Garland went so far as to include theater reviews he did for the Harvard Crimson while in law school.
Garland listed what he considers his 10 most significant opinions. The cases involved the Endangered Species Act, free speech, labor laws, drug convictions and a Guantanamo Bay detainee’s challenge to being labeled an “enemy combatant.”
Many of the decisions he highlighted will give conservatives fodder for discussion.
Earnest said that Garland has authored 357 opinions since ascending to the Appeals Court, and is prepared to explain his legal reasoning.
“When it comes to the substance … of the opinions that he authored, I think this is exactly why there’s a process with the Senate Judiciary Committee to have hearings,” Earnest said. Tough questions “are exactly the kinds of questions that Chief Judge Merrick Garland is prepared to answer. He’s prepared to answer them under oath, on camera, in public.”
Also on Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., became the 15th Republican to meet with Garland.
That “is notable because, you’ll remember that the opening bid by Republican senators was issued by the Republican leader in the Senate who said that they wouldn’t be meeting with the president’s nominee,” Earnest said. “And, in fact, 15 Republican senators at the end of today will have done so.”
Earnest also praised Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., for “opening the door” to a confirmation vote before Election Day.
Flake “actually imagined a scenario in which the Senate would confirm Chief Judge Garland before the election,” Earnest said.
“We certainly believe that is what they should do, and we were gratified to see a Republican senator making that case.”
Earnest left out that Flake floated the idea only in the context of an inevitable GOP loss in November.
“No, I think Republicans are more than justified in waiting. That is following both principle and precedent,” Flake told NBC on Sunday.
“If we come to a point … where we’re going to lose the election or we lose the election in November, then we ought to approve him quickly, because I’m certain that he’ll be more conservative than a Hillary Clinton nomination come January,” the Arizona lawmaker said.
