Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Thursday torched her Republican Senate colleagues for their overwhelming refusal to consider, and in most cases meet with, President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
“Senators have the right — and, indeed, the obligation — to review the qualifications of individual nominees and then decide whether to vote yes or no. That’s what advice and consent is all about,” Warren wrote in an op-ed published in the Boston Globe. “But Republican extremists don’t object to the qualifications of individual nominees. Instead, they block votes wholesale, in order to keep critical jobs vacant, and to undermine the government itself. In so doing, they insult both the president and the Constitution.”
Warren wrote that Republicans “readily admit” that their quibble is not with the qualifications of Obama’s nominee, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland, adding that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has called Garland a “fine man.”
“Stand up to extremists in the Senate bent on sabotaging our government whenever things don’t go their way,” Warren urged her Republican colleagues. “Respect the oath you took to uphold and defend the Constitution.”
She also argued that at least two of the Republican presidential candidates, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Donald Trump, are “logical outgrowths” of Senate Republicans embracing that kind of obstructionism.
“The campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are the next logical outgrowth of the same attitude — if you can’t get what you want, just ignore the obligations of governing, then divert attention and responsibility by wallowing in a toxic stew of attacks on Muslims, women, Latinos, and each other,” she said.
Read the full op-ed here.
