President Obama is calling up Senate Republicans to urge them to meet with his nominee to the Supreme Court, and some are saying “yes.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she plans to meet with Merrick Garland, who Obama announced Wednesday as his pick to replace the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
“The White House has asked that I meet with him and I am more than happy to do so,” Collins said in an interview outside the Senate chamber Wednesday.
Collins said Obama is reaching out to other GOP lawmakers hoping to secure meetings with Garland despite an unwavering pledge from Republican leaders that they will not hold hearings or a vote on whether to confirm the nominee. Collins, a moderate, is one of the Republican senators who voted to confirm Garland to the D.C. Circuit Court 19 years ago.
“I’m not sure why the outreach was made,” Collins said. “I do know that the president called many other senators.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who also plans to meet with Garland, said he also received a call from President Obama on Wednesday morning, announcing his pick.
“He just said, here’e the guy, he’s a good centrist pick, that’s what he told me,” Flake said. “It was a good call. I told him I’d be glad to meet with him.”
Collins is among a handful of Republican senators who have voiced their support for holding a confirmation hearing on Obama’s nominee. That goes against the strategy of Republican leaders, who say they want the next president to pick Scalia’s replacement, and that the voters should weigh in on the decision in the November 2016 presidential election.
But President Obama and Democrats are hoping to pressure the GOP to reverse course, beginning with the traditional Capitol Hill meetings a Supreme Court nominee holds withsSenators after being selected. Senate Democrats have long planned to meet with the nominee, a move that could create politically damaging optics if GOP leaders are seen closing their doors on Garland as he makes his way around the Capitol.
Collins will keep her door open, she said, and will meet with Garland in April, after senators return from a two-week recess.
“I believe there that there should be personal meetings that we usually do and I believe that there should be a hearing before the Judiciary Committee,” Collins said.
Collins said she does not know whether she would ultimately support the confirmation of Garland, who is now chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“It’s clear that Chief Judge Garland is an accomplished jurist,” Collins said. “I voted for him back in 1997 but since that time he’s compiled a 19-year record of judicial decisions and I would want to review that record carefully.”
