Schumer Urged Trump To Nominate Obama's Shunned Nominee For SCOTUS

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York

THIS will never happen.

According to The Washington Post, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer has privately urged Donald Trump to nominate shunned federal Judge Merrick B. Garland to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

You'll recall Garland was President Obama's nominee in 2016 who was blocked from consideration by Senate Republicans.

Trump had called Schumer on Tuesday afternoon for a Supreme Court-centered conversation that lasted less than five minutes, according to a person familiar with the call. Schumer, the person said, pressed the president to name Garland to succeed Kennedy, arguing doing so would help unite the country.

Schumer also warned the president that nominating a jurist who would be hostile to Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion, and to Obama’s signature health-care law, would be “cataclysmic” and damage Trump’s legacy, the person added, requesting anonymity since they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“Perhaps the most consequential issues at stake in this Supreme Court vacancy are affordable health care and a woman’s freedom to make the most sensitive medical decisions about her body,” Schumer wrote in a New York Times op-ed earlier this week. “The views of President Trump’s next court nominee on these issues could well determine whether the Senate approves or rejects them.”

Garland still serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

Coincidentally, that's the same court as the current leading candidate on Trump's list for the replacement spot on the high court, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Judge Merrick Garland

Bernie Sanders: I Would Nominate A More Progressive SCOTUS Candidate

Rachel Maddow welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to discuss not only his campaign, but also the current fight going on over Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland between President Obama and Senate Republicans.

Sanders was clear in saying he would definitely support Garland's nomination, but added that the nominee is not as progressive as he'd like. Sanders went on to say that should be be elected president this fall, he would ask Obama to withdraw the nomination so that a more progressive candidate could be put forward:

“Yes, I would. I think I’m 100% prepared to support Judge Garland. I think he’s clearly very knowledgeable and can serve ably on the Supreme Court. But between you and me, I think there are some more progressive judges out there. I have said over and over again that I do have a litmus test for a Supreme Court justice, and that litmus test is that justice must be loud and clear in telling us that he or she will vote to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. I am very worried about the future of American democracy and about the ability of billionaires to buy elections. That is my litmus test, and that’s what I would insist on.”

Obama To Nominate Merrick Garland To U. S. Supreme Court

CNN is reporting that President Obama will nominate Merrick Garland, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Disctrict of Columbia Circuit to replace recently deceased Antonin Scalia on the U.S.Supreme Court.

Garland, 63, the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has been on short lists before. An appointee of President Bill Clinton, Garland is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School. As a Justice Department lawyer he supervised the investigations in the Unabomber case as well as the Oklahoma City bombing.

Senate Republicans do not plan to vet or have hearings on the nominee, and say the next President should be able to choose Scalia's replacement. Obama and Democrats argue that with 10 months left in his term, there is plenty of time for the Senate to take up and confirm a new justice.

At 63, Garland is much older than the other contenders on the short list such as Judges Sri Srinivasan and Paul Watford. Garland's supporters argue he is the nominee that the senators couldn't refuse even in a contentious environment. "He's the establishment of the establishment," one backer said.

Garland was nominated to the D.C. appellate court in 1997 by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 76-23.

Recent polls show Americans want the U.S. Senate to hold confirmation hearings for President Obama's nominee.

Garland is somewhat of a surprise given his age (63) and his centrist history as a judge, But perhaps that's exactly the point in Obama making his choice.

From ThinkProgress:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the longest serving Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered his own thoughts on who President Obama should nominate to fill the seat left open by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last week. “[Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man,” Hatch told the conservative news site Newsmax, before adding that “he probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.”

UPDATE: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today following the President’s announcement of his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the United States Supreme Court:

"The next justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the Supreme Court and have a profound impact on our country, so of course the American people should have a say in the Court’s direction…The American people may well elect a President who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration. The next President may also nominate someone very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy."

It may be news to Sen. McConnell, but the American people did have a say in the direction of the Supreme Court. It was called the 2012 presidential election when President Obama was reelected to a second FOUR year term with 332 electoral votes and more than five million more popular votes than his opponent. The people spoke loud and clear.