Sen. Mark Kirk delivered a letter to fellow Republican lawmakers Wednesday urging them to meet with President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, adding further pressure on Republicans to at least engage with the nominee, even if a hearing and a vote aren’t in the cards.
Kirk, of Illinois, who is in a tough re-election battle, outlined the topics he discussed with federal judge Merrick Garland when the two met last week. Kirk is one of two GOP senators who have called for hearings and a vote on Garland’s nomination.
“We had a positive conversation and I encourage you to meet with him,” Kirk said in the memo, which was delivered to GOP lawmakers at a closed-door lunch meeting.
While other Republican lawmakers will likely meet with Garland, his nomination is going nowhere in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday. McConnell repeated a pledge he made upon Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February that the GOP would not take up a nominee until a new president is sworn into office.
But McConnell’s decision hasn’t stopped Garland from visiting lawmakers from both parties.
Kirk and Garland discussed the high court’s “guidance on the standards of conduct” for detaining enemy combatants, the difficulties of using RICO laws to prosecute gang activity and the power of the Tenth Amendment to stop the federal government from infringing on states’ “zone of autonomy,” according to the memo.
Kirk is among a handful of GOP lawmakers who have met with Garland. Most Republicans who say they will meet with Garland do not want hearings or a vote on his confirmation, but are holding the meetings as a courtesy to the White House.
But Kirk told a Chicago radio show last month that Congress should “just man up and cast a vote,” on Garland.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, met with Garland on Tuesday and said she was “more convinced than ever” that the Senate should hold a hearing on his confirmation.
