The Senate Must Deny Obama’s Bid to Transform the Supreme Court
I think very highly of Merrick Garland, whom President Obama has nominated to fill the Supreme Court seat of the late, legendary Justice Antonin Scalia. Merrick was a voice of reason and sound judgment as a top official in the Clinton Justice Department during the Nineties when I was prosecuting terrorists.
.. Consequently, even if Senate Republicans did not have solid constitutional authority to refuse to entertain Obama’s judicial appointments (they do), and even if there were not a rich record of Democratic Senate obstruction of outstanding Republican judicial nominees (there is), I would strenuously oppose the consideration of any Obama nominee for a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court, no matter how well I think of the nominee.
.. Obama is a lame duck who has already done lasting damage to the separation of powers that undergirds our constitutional system. He has already put his stamp on the federal judiciary: Besides two Supreme Court justices, he will have placed well over 300 like-minded, life-tenured appointees on the bench by the time he leaves office. He should not be permitted to further shape the ideological direction of the Supreme Court, especially with several cases on the horizon that challenge Obama policies implemented by unilateral, legally dubious executive action.
.. He knows that, as a campaign issue, the specter of Hillary Clinton’s choosing a “progressive” jurist who would dramatically shift the high court (imperiling free speech, Second Amendment, and privacy rights; upholding more central planning by Washington; empowering criminal defendants, terrorist combatants, and illegal aliens) will be a winning one, perhaps even a decisive one, for Republicans in November.
.. It is very simple: The next Supreme Court justice can be chosen by either President Obama or the American people.