Blumenthal says the only Supreme Court nominee he'd support right now is Merrick Garland...
Source: Hartford Courant
Full headline: Blumenthal says the only Supreme Court nominee he’d support right now is Merrick Garland, Obama’s pick in 2016
By EMILY BRINDLEY
HARTFORD COURANT | SEP 27, 2020 AT 3:59 PM
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has taken a strong stance against the president’s Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett just weeks away from the election, said Sunday that there’s only one nomination he’d support right now: Judge Merrick Garland.
“We’re talking a very hypothetical; it’s not going to happen," Blumenthal said. But “would I support anyone? Yes, Merrick Garland.”
The answer, which Blumenthal clarified was “partly facetious,” is a reminder that Democrats remain angry at the snubbing of Garland, a federal appeals court judge, by Senate Republicans in 2016. In March of that year, during the home stretch of former President Barack Obama’s second term and eight months away from the next presidential election, Justice Antonin Scalia died and left a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Obama nominated Garland to fill the seat, but the nomination was blocked by Senate Republicans who said the timeline was too tight to allow the sitting president to pick a new justice.
Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, stalled until the nomination expired. Newly elected President Donald J. Trump was then able to fill the seat with his own pick.
Read more: https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-blumenthal-garland-opposition-coney-barrett-20200927-auzrizpyi5chfihhnotsqyvody-story.html
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