President Obama announced Wednesday that he will be nominating Merrick Garland as his nominee for the Supreme Court. President Obama and Vice President Biden introduced Garland on in the White House Rose Garden. If approved by the Senate, Garland would become the 113th Supreme Court justice, and the third justice to enter the Supreme Court under President Obama.
Judge Garland is considered to be a centrist. Garland was nominated because of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, creating an opening. Garland is currently the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Garland is a Harvard graduate, a former prosecutor and a Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appeared on the Senate floor Wednesday, in response to the president’s remarks, to declare an end to Judge Garland’s nomination, no matter what his qualifications are. McConnell announced he will not be meeting with Garland.
Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, backed up the notion that the Republican-controlled Senate has “every right” not to act on President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination. Ryan told the New York Times: “We should let the American people decide the direction of the court.”
The next step for Garland will be to meet with legislators; Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.
