Joe Biden caused a minor stir heading into the weekend by not ruling out the possibility of reappointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if elected president.
Like many Twitter controversies, the quote itself is much less than it seemed at first.
In an interview with the politics site Iowa Starting Line, Biden talked about how the Republican-controlled Senate successfully blocked the appointment of Garland, keeping open the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia until President Trump took office.
The site reports:
“I have pretty good relationships on both sides of the aisle,” Biden explained of his efforts during the Garland fight. “I’d say, what are you doing, you’re setting a horrible precedent here. And the answer was, I know Joe, but if I go, I’m in a red state, if I go ahead and just call for a hearing, the Koch Brothers will drop five, ten million dollars on my race. That’s nothing about political courage, it’s a reality.”
And he didn’t rule out a return of the Obama nominee who never made it to a Senate hearing.
“Sure, I would,” Biden said when asked if he’d be open to nominating Garland again. “By the way, he’s a first-rate person.”
The reality is that Garland personally was well-liked by everybody, but ultimately became a pawn in the high-stakes nature of modern judicial appointment politics.
Had Democrats controlled the Senate, Obama would have appointed somebody much younger and further to the Left than Garland. But he wanted to appoint somebody who would make it as difficult as possible for McConnell to maintain his “no hearings, no votes” posture. Had Garland been nominated to replace a liberal on the court instead of a conservative icon, he would have been much more likely to have been confirmed.
Most likely, Biden was just being nice by saying “sure” he’d be open to appointing him again. There’s no way liberals would allow a Democratic president to appoint a center-left nominee who, at 68 by the time the next president is inaugurated, would be at least 15 years older than any preferred nominee.
But just to put my cards on the table, if Biden were elected with a Democratic Senate and Ruth Bader Ginsburg retired in 2021, I’d totally be happy with a Garland appointment.
