Senate Democrats Wednesday held a mock hearing to bolster their case that the GOP should take up President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, one that Republicans dismissed as a “pretend” hearing, and one that even many Democrats skipped.
It’s been more than three months since the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the GOP’s pledge to wait until 2017 to vote on a nominee to replace him. Democrats have been unrelenting in their quest to pressure Republicans to change course, or at least extract a political price if they don’t hold a hearing and vote on Merrick Garland.
The hearing, led by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Pat Leahy, D-Vt., lasted for just an hour, and even Leahy admitted it wasn’t really a “congressional hearing.”
“I can’t convene a congressional hearing, we’re in the minority,” Leahy said from the dais. “But just because Republicans don’t do their job doesn’t mean Democrats will stop doing ours.”
The witness list included Donna Bucella, who worked alongside Garland as he prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing case, and former U.S. Court of Appeals judge Timothy K. Lewis, who was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.
Bucella praised Garland as “calm under pressure” as the two stepped through the smoldering Murrah building ruins after the April 1995 bombing that killed 168 people.
“You never really know what is going on in his head and he is always 25 steps ahead of everybody else,” Bucella said.
Lewis lamented the breakdown of bipartisanship that has plagued the Senate in recent years, which he believes is the reason lawmakers won’t take up Garland’s nomination. “Today we are mired in a very unfortunate and dysfunctional place that is resulting in what is going on now,” Lewis said.
The hearing took place as Garland returned to the Capitol for another day of meetings with only Democratic senators.
While a few Republicans have also met with Garland, the Senate GOP has not receded an inch from its position, which is to wait until a new president is elected to take up a nominee, even if the winner in November is Hillary Clinton.
Democrats say leaving the position vacant has hampered the court, which has ended up in a 4-4 tie on many decisions.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said ahead of the Democrats’ mock hearing that even the Democrats labeled it as “pretend.”
“Last week, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee said that some would like to do ‘some sort of a pretend hearing’ on the president’s Supreme Court nomination,” McConnell said. “He went on to dismiss that idea by noting that the Senate ‘is not a pretend office.’ Apparently he was overruled.”
McConnell said Democrats removed from their witness list former congressman Abner Mikva, a one-time White House counsel who years ago advocated for delaying confirmation votes on Supreme Court nominees if the vacancies occurred during presidential elections.
“Apparently that witness is no longer available,” McConnell said. “Interesting.”
Democrats said Mikva, who is in his 90s, was removed from the list because he was unable to travel.
