WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama selected Merrick Garland for the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, choosing a centrist judge meant to win over recalcitrant Senate Republicans whose leaders wasted no time in spurning the Democratic president.
A bruising political fight is brewing over the nomination, which also promises to figure in the already contentious campaign for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. The Republican-led Senate’s leaders have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on any Obama nominee.
Garland, 63, was picked to replace long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. A Chicagoan like Obama, he serves as chief judge of the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and is a former prosecutor who in the past has won praise from both Republicans and Democrats.
Wasting no time in pressing its case for Senate confirmation, the administration is dispatching Garland to Capitol Hill today to huddle with Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Judiciary Committee Democrat and then with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
