After heightened speculation that Indian-American Judge Sri Srinivasan may well be his pick, President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last month.
Srinivasan, a judge on the same Appeals Court and someone lauded by Obama as “a trailblazer” while appointing him to his present position, was on the President’s shortlist, so much so that media reports as recent as Wednesday morning suggested that it was going to be a virtual toss-up between Srinivasan and Garland. Announcing his decision to nominate Garland, Obama hailed the 63-year-old judge as someone “widely recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence”.
The whole nomination process, however, is set to remain a non-starter with the Republicans, controlling the US Senate, making it clear that they would block any Obama nominee to the highest court of the land in his final year in office, insisting that he should leave the matter to his successor. They have indicated that the Senate Judicial Committee would not hold any confirmation hearing.
Reiterating their opposition, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell accused President Obama of trying to “politicize” the issue in an election year. Taking the Senate floor soon after Obama’s announcement, McConnell said the American people must have a voice on filling the Supreme Court vacancy, adding the Senate will wait until after the next President is elected in November.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, making it clear that the Obama nomination would not be taken up for consideration, said in a statement, “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics.”