President Obama is well into the process of selecting his nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, according to report from National Public Radio.
According to the report, Obama has met with two judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C.: Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Judge Sri Srinivasan, who would be the first justice of South Asian heritage.
NPR also reported that Obama had interviewed Judge Paul Watford, of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and St. Louis based 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jane Kelly. Obama also interviewed D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
NPR reported that Srinivasan, Garland and Watford top the list, and all three of them have earned wide bipartisan support in the past.
Obama continues to push forward with vetting even as Senate Republicans have announced they will not hold a hearing on Obama’s nominee citing the election year as reason enough to block Obama from moving forward with his constitutional obligation.
Just for fun, Obama should pull a Cheney and announce he’s interviewing himself.
While I hope (and fully expect) Obama to fulfill his constitutional duty, I feel bad for whoever he nominates. No matter who it is, they will face a political clusterfuck of epic proportions.
The best I can hope for is that they stay above the fray, let the GOP eat itself, and then angle for a renomination under the new Democratic president.
I just hope this does not take a eminently qualified candidate out of the running.
I’d pay money to watch the Sri Srinivasan hearings. The smartest, nicest guy you’ll ever meet, from Kansas, against Koch-adled middle-listers, whose best quality is that their names look unremarkable on suburban yard-signs.
Pay-per-view is the way to go there. Ka-Ching.
These are highly qualified individuals. The SCOTUS would be enhanced with any one of them. And the games will continue and the GOP will sabotage anyone, so what can we do?
Please proceed, Senators.