According to Nina Totenberg on NPR, the Republicans have found some wiggle room. They wait until after the election; if Hillary wins, they confirm Garland. They can then say that they “let the people speak” or whatever.
The Senate Republicans will, as others mentioned, try to walk it back, but their comments on “not consider any nomination made by Obama, nope, nope, nope…” is going to come back to haunt them, even with the best spin doctors out there.
Will be interesting to see/hear Fox News/Conservative Blogosphere/Candidates have to say.
It does seem like a shrewd move by Obama; we’ll see how it plays out for the next couple of days.
The people who will brow beat the Republicans over this are, IMO, mostly those who are opposed to them already. The only real potential is a few senators face a primary challenge as a result which is a risk. What the Democrats think is largely irrelevant. By November I think this is a non-issue.
Of course, that assumes the confirmation process proceeds. If the Republicans string it out, all bets are off.
My thoughts exactly. I’m disappointed he didn’t anyone other than a white male.
If the Repubs dither and delay until November and Hillary wins, I’d hope/expect Obama to w/draw the nomination. I’m viewing Garland as a placeholder - a sacrificial lamb to try to make the Repubs look bad.
Sure. They can depict it as a noble way for Marco Rubio, Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, and Ron Johnson to end their careers in the Senate.
Maybe only the Dem supporters will brow beat them over it, but everything I’ve seen seems to indicate there’s bipartisan support for the idea that the nominee should at least get a hearing. The CNN poll I’m looking at now shows an insignificant number of people said “depends on who it is”, so that’s not going to be a popular walk back path.
So, interestingly, Merrick Garland is Jewish. Meaning the Catholic-Jewish split in the Supreme Court would be 5-4 (no Protestants on the bench since Stevens, which is just kind of strange).
Obama’s not under any obligations to give his choice to anyone else, even a fellow democrat. Besides, I fully expect Hillary to applaud Garland’s selection. Anyone thinking that Hillary will go full-Liberal once she gets elected is going to be sorely unhappy.
Not full-Liberal, per se… but I’d think she’d be more than happy to pick Srinivasan over Garland among left-of-center justices (and I think Obama would to if he had a Democratic Senate). For one, Sri is a good deal younger and will be on the bench longer.
If the early days after Scalia’s death, there was a huge outpouring of concern by the extreme right wing that the stupid RINOs would roll over and confirm a replacement. They were up in arms, I tell ya.
She’ll have other openings to fill, and probably not the ones you’d most expect (who had Scalia in the SCOTUS Death Pool?). Srinivasan is now In Play for her if she wants.
And let’s not pretend Clinton wasn’t closely involved in this decision.