Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is defending his blockade of President Obama’s nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia from home-state critics who described his stance as “un-American.”
“The Senate’s power to withhold consent is as much a part of the Constitution as the president’s power to nominate,” Grassley wrote in a Des Moines Register op-ed published Monday. “It’s also not unlike the president’s power to veto a bill Congress presents him, as the president has done nine times, or the many veto threats he’s made on measures that Congress hasn’t even passed. The Senate’s decision regarding the court vacancy is constitutional.”
“It will help safeguard the integrity of the court,” he said. “It’s common sense. And, it’s entirely American.”
Grassley’s column is a critique of the Des Moines Register, the largest paper in the state that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has cited often in the Supreme Court debate to attack Grassley and aid a Democratic Senate candidate.
The Register accused Grassley of having partisan motives for refusing to hold a hearing on Judge Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination at a time when the court is split between four Republican appointees and four Democratic appointees. “Senator, this seat needs to be filled, regardless of whether the presidency and your own seat is up for grabs in November,” the editors wrote. “Grassley won’t give Garland a chance, to even let him in the game.”
Grassley countered with an appeal to Supreme Court history and the current justices. “The Supreme Court was established with only six justices,” he recalled. “No one would call members of the first Congress that passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, like James Madison, or George Washington, who signed it into law, un-American … A nomination considered during this heated campaign season would be all about politics, not the Constitution.”
The back-and-forth between Grassley and the Register testifies to how the Supreme Court fight will affect the election cycle. The editorials are also buttressing Democratic optimism that Grassley’s stance will create an election-year liability for the typically-invulnerable senator.
