Biden, Supreme Court nominee on Hill to pressure GOP
Justice Ginsburg said that while the two parties have been at an impasse for some time, she thinks “cooler heads will prevail”.
Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is returning to Capitol Hill as part of a Democratic effort to push for a vote on his nomination.
Senate Republicans, headed by Mitch McConnell, have been firm in their decision not to allow Judge Garland’s nomination.
Ginsburg said on Wednesday that she hopes “cooler heads will prevail” as Democrats this week renew their push for the GOP-led Senate to confirm Merrick Garland.
Ginsburg, 83, a liberal appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993, acknowledged that the Senate, which has the responsibility to confirm or reject judicial nominations, did not have to confirm the nominee.
Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee who was the first senator to meet with Garland earlier this year, is hosting Garland at a 10:30 a.m. meeting at the Capitol to assure the nominee that Democrats are still pushing for his confirmation this year, a Leahy spokeswoman said. Obama’s nomination of the moderate appeals court judge has been pending without action for 174 days, longer than any other Supreme Court nominee in USA history. “If they want to do their job, we could easily have the hearing and the confirmation in September”.
Republicans sounded unconvinced. McConnell “has been crystal clear for the last seven months”, an aide to the senator said on Tuesday.
Ginsburg spoke in response to a student question about whether there is any “valid constitutional argument” that would prevent President Obama from filling the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, report the Washington Post and the Associated Press.
The court is now divided 4-4 between liberal- and conservative-leaning justices.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has a list of 11 conservative judges he would consider as a replacement for Scalia, who died in February this year.