Obama warns GOP against politicizing nomination
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama warned against politicizing the selection of Supreme Court justices on Thursday as he prepares to announce his own nominee amid Republican threats to block any pick he makes.
Tying the Supreme Court appointment to the election of his successor threatens to undermine public faith in the entire court system by making it seem too much like “one more extension of our polarized politics,” Obama argued.
“If and when that happens, our system’s not going to work,” Obama said. “Our goal is to have them be objective and be able to execute their duties in a way that gives everybody, both the winning party and the losing party in any given case, a sense that they were treated fairly.
“That depends on a process of selecting and confirming judges that is perceived as fair,” Obama said.
The president is moving toward a final decision on a high court nominee who will immediately face long odds of confirmation. Republicans in the Senate insist they won’t hold hearings or even interview a nominee until after the November election, arguing that a president with less than a year left in office shouldn’t be making such a consequential decision.
Democrats counter that Obama was elected by voters for four years, not three.
His remarks in the Rose Garden preview the argument Obama himself is preparing. Previous presidents, including conservative icon Ronald Reagan, made late-term appointments to the Supreme Court, and the Obama White House is planning a public campaign to pressure lawmakers to at least give his pick a hearing.
On Thursday, Obama warned that the credibility of the court system is at stake. Republicans who typically read the Constitution very literally are interpreting new “requirements, norms and procedures” only for political reasons.
His nominee, Obama said, will be above politics.
“I’m confident that whoever I select among fair-minded people will be viewed as an eminently qualified person,” Obama said. “And it will then be up to Senate Republicans to decide whether they want to follow the Constitution and abide by the rules of fair play that ultimately undergird our democracy.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, who holds the power to take action on Obama’s coming Supreme Court nomination, reiterated Thursday that he is determined not to act on any nominee and criticized Democrats for “misguided logic” in applying political pressure to him personally.
At a morning committee meeting, Grassley, RIowa, addressed both the almost daily attacks he has seen from Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid, DNev., who has called into question Grassley’s legacy as a six-term senator and Judiciary Committee chairman.
For 90 minutes Thursday, senators of both parties took turns citing historical precedent and reading long forgotten speeches from members of the opposite party bolstering their own points.
One exception to the back-and-forth was Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who portrayed the current standoff as the unfortunate consequence of a series of power grabs on both sides — culminating in Democrats’ 2013 deployment of the “nuclear option,” abolishing the filibuster for lower-court judges.