So-o-o-o many back stories to examine, so little time — it seems — to do them all justice.
Speaking of justice, here’s a back story that might get some traction if current presidential election trends continue toward Election Day.
Merrick Garland. Do you remember him? President Obama nominated him to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court after Justice Antonin Scalia died while on a hunting trip in Texas.
Garland’s nomination was put on the back burner by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who declared within hours of Scalia’s death that the Senate would not consider anyone the president nominated. He would insist that the next president get that task. He said he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for a president in the final year of his second term to make an appointment to the nation’s highest court.
McConnell’s logic defies, well, logic.
Here’s how this story gets interesting.
As I am writing this blog post, Democratic presidentialĀ nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton is putting some distance between herself and Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, whose campaign is showing signs of imploding before our eyes.
So, McConnell has a calculation to make.
“Do I hope my party’s nominee pulls his head out soon enough to actually be elected president this November? Or do I concede that Clinton’s going to become the next president — and then do I allow Garland’s nomination to go forward in a lame-duck session of Congress?”
It’s looking, to me at least, as though Clinton’s going to win the election. That seems to set the table for a confirmation hearing and a vote for Garland, who by all accounts is a mainstream jurist who likely will be as suitable a pick as the Republicans are going to get — presuming a Clinton election.
What’s more, it also is entirely possible that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, which puts additional pressure on Republicans to act now while they still run the Senate.
McConnell never should have dug in his heels in the first place. He is playing politics with this constitutional task given to the president, which is to nominate candidates to the federal bench. For him and other Republicans to suggest in retaliation that Obama is playing politics is laughable on its face.
Garland has deserved a hearing and a vote ever since the president put his name forward. Hillary Clinton hasn’t said whether she would renominate Garland after she takes the presidential oath in January, which leads me to believe she’ll find someone else.
Obama sought to appease his GOP critics in the Senate by nominating Garland in the first place. He knew the Republican majority would resist anyone he nominated. He sought to find someone who already had been approved to the federal bench and who had impeccable judicial credentials.
If the trend continues and Trump continues to fall farther and farther into the political ditch, my strong hunch is that Majority Leader McConnell will cry “Uncle!” and give Merrick Garland the hearing — and the up-or-down vote in the Senate — he has deserved all along.