Garland is highly regarded.
Majority leader says Senate will not act on his nomination
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick B. Garland to be the nation’s 113th Supreme Court justice, choosing a centrist appeals court judge for the lifetime appointment and daring Republican senators to refuse consideration of a jurist who is highly regarded throughout Washington.
Obama introduced Garland to an audience of his family members, activists and White House staff in the Rose Garden, describing him as exceptionally qualified to serve on the Supreme Court in the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last month.
The president said Garland is “widely recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence. These qualities and his long commitment to public service have earned him the respect and admiration of leaders from both sides of the aisle.”
He added that Garland “will ultimately bring that same character to bear on the Supreme Court, an institution in which he is uniquely prepared to serve immediately.”
Obama said it is tempting to make the confirmation process “an extension of our divided politics.” But he warned that “to go down that path would be wrong .”
Later in the day the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called Garland and said that the Senate would not take action on his nomination.
McConnell also informed Garland that they would not be meeting in person at the Capitol on Thursday.
In choosing Garland, a wellknown moderate who has drawn bipartisan support over decades, Obama was essentially daring Republicans to press their election-year confirmation fight over a judge many of them have publicly praised.
Garland persevered through a lengthy political battle in the mid-1990s that delayed his own confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by more than a year. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, RIowa, argued at the time that the vacancy should not be filled.
Twenty years later, Grassley and other Republicans are again standing in the way of Garland’s appointment, arguing that the next president should be the one to pick the successor to Scalia. Republicans in the Senate and on the presidential campaign trail vowed to stand firm against whomever Obama chose.
In remarks Monday, Obama chastised Republicans for their stand, demanding that the Republican-controlled Senate fulfill its responsibility to consider Garland and hold a timely vote on his nomination. To do anything else would be irresponsible, he said.