Republicans said Wednesday they wouldn’t budge from their decision to defer consideration of a Supreme Court nominee, and announced the Senate would not take a look at President Obama’s announced pick for the high court, D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland.
Almost as soon as Obama announced Garland’s confirmation, Republicans said they would not be changing their plan to ignore the nomination in the Senate, where Garland’s confirmation would require a 60-vote majority. Republicans control the Senate with 54 votes.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., repeated his pledge to hold off on considering a nominee until after the November presidential election.
“It is the president’s constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, and it is the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on the president, and withhold its consent,” McConnell said on the Senate floor moments after Obama’s announcement. “Our view is, give the people a voice in filling this vacancy.”
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, also signaled he was still against holding hearings on the nominee, which would have been the first and critical legislative step in the confirmation process.
“Today, the president has exercised his constitutional authority,” said Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. “A majority of the Senate has decided to fulfill its constitutional role of advice and consent by withholding support for the nomination during a presidential election year, with millions of votes having been cast in highly charged contests.”
“I stand with the majority of my Senate colleagues in concluding that the best way to exercise our advice-and-consent power is to conduct the confirmation process after the presidential election,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added in a statement.
Grassley and McConnell have been unwavering in their commitment to stopping the confirmation of an Obama nomination to the Supreme Court that could tip the court to the left.
Republicans said they would not even meet with Obama’s high court choice, even though Democrats said prior to Garland’s selection that they plan to invite the nominee to the Capitol for meetings with senators.
The GOP is mostly unified on the matter, although Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine., and Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., have both called for Senate consideration of the nominee.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is among the majority of Republicans who want to hold off on considering a nominee.
“I will not consider any Supreme Court nominee until after the country has elected our next president in November and they have taken office in January 2017,” Scott said in a statement. “This is about the principle that the American people must have a voice in who the next Supreme Court nominee will be and I intend to honor that principle.”
GOP senators such as freshman Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., have made the case that the upcoming presidential election should help dictate who succeeds Scalia.
“Before a Supreme Court justice is confirmed to a lifetime position on the bench, West Virginians and the American people should have the ability to weigh in at the ballot box this November,” Capito said. “My position does not change with the naming of a nominee today.”
