White House calls out Sen. Risch for opposing Supreme Court pick

When questioned, McCain’s office re-sent the senator’s statement from last month, which said that with “the long-term ideological balance of the Supreme Court at stake… the American people must have a voice in the direction of the Supreme Court by electing a new president”.

Senator Claire McCaskill (R-Missouri) has met with Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee.

Democrats have spent weeks trying to pressure Republicans into bucking the GOP strategy of leaving the Supreme Court seat vacant until next year. Maria Cantwell are touting Garland’s qualifications and want a speedy vote, Crapo and Risch are ready to vote against him and say the job should be filled by the next president.

“One of the things we’ve seen in recent decades is that the Supreme Court is rapidly becoming a policymaker in the United States…”

If Senate Republicans hold firm, there’s another possibility looming: Campaigning in Iowa in January, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said she’d consider nominating Obama to the Supreme Court if she won the presidency. The other 15-second ads target Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and several vulnerable Republicans facing competitive reelection races: Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of OH and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. McCaskill said she wanted to hear from Garland about his qualifications, even as U.S. Senate Republicans refuse to hold a confirmation hearing for him.

“The notion the Democrats would then say, “Oh, well, we’ll just go along with that” – that is inconceivable, right?”

“Our position from the beginning has been very clear: President Obama is not a king”, said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, which submitted a brief
urging the court to uphold the lower ruling.

Vance pointed to Murray’s 2006 vote to filibuster Samuel Alito, President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee. “That would represent a breakdown of the process”, Earnest said.

“She is standing with the far-right party leadership and her special interest backers, rather than doing her job for the people of New Hampshire”, Hassan said.

“I think it’s important because hopefully groups like FreedomWorks woke up to the fact that any time you are criticizing a Republican senator up [for re-election] in 2016, you’re the ones who are furthering the Democrats’ cause”, Walsh said. Indeed, we can be sure that eventually the shoe will be on the other foot, and so let us stand now for principle so that we will not be hypocrites when the political situation is reversed.

Risch said there’s no way to keep politics out of the fight over a Supreme Court nominee.