President Obama evidently thinks he has a nominee who is confirmable by a Republican Senate that soon after Antonin Scalia’s death made clear its intention to block anyone the president might nominate and thus let the voters decide in November who instead should select Scalia’s replacement.
Obama is in a difficult position. He has no constitutional authority to force the Senate to quit its no-consent-to-any-appointment position and get the Republicans to hold hearings and have votes, which they have said will not occur. Obama instead must try to persuade the dug-in Senate to change course.
And so, among the materials that the White House made available today is this statement by Garland: “The role of the court is to apply the law to the facts of the case before it—not to legislate, not to arrogate to itself the executive power, not to hand down advisory opinions on the issues of the day.” Garland, conservatives are being told, is a judicial conservative.
But if you were watching CNN Newsroom this morning, you might have your doubts about that upon hearing this from CNN’s Manu Raju: “a number of Democrats are happy about [the Garland nomination] because they believe that he’s qualified for the post and also has a liberal, more progressive bend in his background.”
