Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on Wednesday said that she doesn’t believe it is fair of Republican senators to block any Supreme Court nominee from President Obama.
“I think it’s simply not fair and not right to say that no matter who the President was going to nominate, that we should not look at this person the way that we normally would do,” she told the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. “That doesn’t mean that I’ve reached a decision on Judge Merrick [Garland]. That’s what the process is for.”
Collins has previously said that she believes the Senate should hold hearings and that she was willing to meet with Garland. On Wednesday, she said she would meet with Garland in early April.
“The only way that the Senate can reach reasonable and informed decisions on nominees to the highest court in the land is for us to follow the regular process. That means having these individual one-on-one meetings and then also the Judiciary Committee, in my view, should hold the kind of in-depth hearings that it has traditionally held,” she told Maine Public Broadcasting.
When asked how she has been persuading her Republican colleagues to hold a hearing for Garland, Collins said that she hasn’t been very successful.
“I have had conversations with my colleagues,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I’ve been overwhelmingly successful in convincing the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to hold hearings, but I hope that as time goes on, and as people sit down with Judge Garland and talk to him one-on-one, that perhaps there will be a shift in the position of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”
H/t Associated Press
