President Obama Nominates Merrick Garland

By
James Williams
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Today in the Rose Garden President Barack Obama nominated highly regarded judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month on the Supreme Court. It’s not hard to see why Obama might again find the 63-year-old Garland a good choice, he has a reputation as a moderate, which could please Republicans, and a resume that makes him look like a lot of the high court’s current members.

The Senate has informed  President Obama that they have no intention of even hearing about a replacement for Justice Scalia until the next president is chosen. Meanwhile, the Democrats feel that if the GOP members of the Senate don’t even give the president’s nominee there will be heat on some of the vulnerable Republicans fighting re-election battles.

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As for Garland he’s now chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, known in legal circles  as the “second highest court in the land” in part because of the frequency with which its judges ascend to the Supreme Court just a few blocks away.

His background made him popular even with Republicans when he was nominated to the D.C. Circuit by President Bill Clinton in 1995, but the full Senate didn’t initially act on his nomination. The issue wasn’t Garland, Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said at the time, but whether the court needed another judge at all.

Grassley is now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would oversee any hearings on a nominee. Meanwhile, the Republican controlled Senate at the same time as President Obama was introducing Garland, Mitch McConnell the Senate Majority Leader made it clear that this nomination will be dead on arrival when the nomination reaches the body.

James Williams
Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.