The Garland nomination, and why elections matter

Before the Senate voted on cloture for Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., came to the floor to discuss at length the history of judicial nominations in the U.S. Senate. I was looking forward most to what he would say about Merrick Garland’s nomination.

He did address it, stating (as he often has) by saying that he and the Republican majority had applied a standard advocated previously by former Sen. Joe Biden and later Schumer himself: The Senate doesn’t have to take up the nominee of an opposing party’s president in an election year.