CCBA Statement on President Obama's Supreme Court Nominee
Last week, President Obama named Judge Merrick Garland as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Garland is currently chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he has served for nineteen years, the last three as chief judge. Judge Garland is universally described as a moderate justice. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, refused to back down from his promise the Senate would not consider any nominee put forth by President Obama, despite the fact that in the past—as little as days before President Obama’s announcement—Garland had been praised by Republican leaders and commentators as a consensus nominee.
Reaction among Obama’s supporters has been mixed. Many have praised the President for going forward in the face of senseless Republican obstructionism. Not even the threat of a Democratic victory and the possibility of a more liberal nominee is enough to allow Republicans to overcome their disdain for President Obama, saying Judge Garland would not even be considered in a lame duck session if a Democrat wins the White House. While Republicans have taken the position the President should not appoint anyone to fill the vacancy on the highest court of the land in an election year—a position without precedent or legal support—some supporters of the President have expressed disappointment over the President’s selection. Many of us were hoping for a more historic selection that could have a more far-reaching impact on the court (at 63, Garland is older than the average supreme court nominee, and it is not believed he would match the nearly thirty years Justice Scalia served the court). There were several qualified Black women for the President to choose from, and we believe that a Black woman Justice is long overdue.
Nonetheless, the President has the authority and the duty to nominate a Justice to the United States Supreme Court and we support him in exercising that authority. Faced with an obdurate Republican majority, the President could have been seeking to preserve his ability to point the court in a more liberal direction even if he would be unable to move it as far as some would like by selecting a candidate who would be troublesome to the Republican opposition. Perhaps President Obama, the former professor of constitutional law, believed that Judge Garland’s approach as a jurist provided the best opportunity to make sustained changes that would be less open to attack by future incarnations of the Court. The New York Times describes Judge Garland’s opinions as “models of judicial craftsmanship—unflashy, methodically reasoned, attentive to precedent and tightly rooted in the language of the governing statutes and regulations.” Whatever the reasons for the President’s choice of a nominee, it was his choice to make, and we support our President, who has been opposed at every turn and never credited for his many successes. The Republicans’ latest tactic is part of their overall strategy to deny President Obama the legacy he deserves. We should not assist them. We urge the Senate to do its duty and hold hearings, and vote to confirm Judge Merrick Garland as Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
