The line Senate Republicans have drawn on refusing to consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland continues to wiggle as a spokeswoman for GOPers on the Senate Judiciary Committee told Buzzfeed that Republicans “assume the administration will fill out the standard questionnaire submitted for judicial nominations.”
Her statement points to what is typically the next step in the Supreme Court nomination process. However, the spokeswoman, Beth Levine, repeated GOP leadership’s stance that “a majority of the Senate has made clear that the American people should have an opportunity to weigh in on this vacancy.”
As part of the usual process for Supreme nominations, a personalized questionnaire is exchanged between the Judiciary staff, which holds hearings on judicial nominees, and the White House for the nominee to fill out so Senators can prepare for the hearings. According to the Buzzfeed report, the White House has yet to receive a personalized questionnaire from either the office of Judiciary Chariman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) or ranking Dem Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT). However, it cheered the signal that Republicans were expecting to receive a standard questionnaire in a statement to Buzzfeed that said it was “heartened by this development.”
The White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffin added that they “look forward to the Committee making this request directly to the nominee as well as to the White House, as is standard practice.”
Almost immediately after Justice Anthony Scalia died in February, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Senate consideration of his successor should wait until after the next president is elected. Following his lead, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee vowed to not even hold a hearing.
The White House, meanwhile, has attempted to stick with the normal process for putting forth a nominee, announcing the selection of Garland about a month after Scalia’s death. The administration and outside groups have also sought to keep the pressure on Republicans to back down from their blockade, while conservative groups have urged GOP Senators to stick to it.
If the GOP caves on this (and I dont see how they dont)…its game, set, match. The base will be infuriated and stay home.
They must be expecting Trump to win the nomination and Hillary to beat him in the general.
What’s that saying about the enemy you know?
How does the Senate judiciary committee keep denying Garland a hearing when some of them have praised him so lavishly, think Orrin Hatch.
Haha…You are making a rather large assumption that the “base” knows what the Supreme Court is…
I don’t think so. If 70% or so of the overall electorate does want the process to go through now it will likely be in the 80%+ category by the time the election rolls around. And even now I doubt that more than 50% of republicans strongly oppose any review let alone confirmation. More like IMO 35-45%.
Still, and although the article seems to see cracks in their armor, I’m surprised by this factoid: what do they gain by incrementally over the next say 3-6 months if they then fold and hold normal hearings? Strategically, they are making then a huge mistake as by then Democratic Pacs, the DNC, individual Democrats running this season or not and even many republican office holders will have sliced and diced McTurtle and those Senators now up for re-election.
Point is, by then the damage to Republican Senators will be complete and few will forget their intransigence with say only 3 months or less to Election Day. So, why incur the damage when they will likely fold anyway? Thank God McTurtle wasn’t our senior commander in WWII or we’d all be speaking German!