Senate Republicans Just Adjourned Until After the Election Without Confirming Merrick Garland

Sunday marks 200 days since his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a new term begins next week.

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Since 1975, the average time between a Supreme Court nomination and confirmation is 67 days — and every nominee (ever) who hasn’t withdrawn from the process has been given a vote within 125 days of the nomination.

Until now.

Chief Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Supreme Court pick, has been waiting nearly 200 days. And Senate Democrats have officially had it.

This week, 43 senators cosponsored a resolution calling on Senate Republicans to hold a confirmation hearing and vote before leaving for another lengthy recess — one that isn’t scheduled to end until after the presidential election on November 8. Ten senators took to the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon to slam Republican leadership for their obstruction. Some of those senators joined advocates outside for a rally immediately after. Others have posted statements on their websites and social media accounts. Their message is particularly important heading into next week, when the Court will begin its next term. But Senate Republicans adjourned anyway.

Here’s what Democrats did this week to raise the profile of the vacancy.

For an hour on Tuesday afternoon, Democrats delivered speeches on the Senate floor to slam their Republican colleagues’ obstruction. Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada began the hour, calling the Republican-led Senate a “flop” that hasn’t kept its promises to the nation.

The Republican leader pledged that the Senate would do its work. For all his lofty rhetoric, the Republican leader has failed to fill his promises time and time again. There is no better example than the Senate Republicans’ refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Judge Merrick Garland was nominated by President Obama 195 days ago. For 195 days, Republicans have blocked this good man from getting a hearing or a vote in spite of the fact that Merrick Garland is extremely qualified.

The nine other senators who spoke, including six members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered strong rebukes of Republican inaction.

Patrick Leahy, Vermont, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee

This Republican obstruction has consequences for all Americans. Because Senate Republicans refuse to do their jobs, the Supreme Court has been repeatedly unable to uphold its essential constitutional role as a final arbiter of the law. The uncertainty in the law has been harmful to businesses, and it has been harmful to law enforcement and to families and children across our country.

Richard Durbin, Illinois, Assistant Democratic Leader, Senate Judiciary Committee member

It is the most accurate reflection of the dysfunction of the U.S. Senate I can think of — that the Senate Republican leadership would ignore the Constitution and the traditions of the Senate, leave these poor judicial nominees languishing for up to a year on the calendar, and refuse to meet their constitutional obligation to give Merrick Garland — even though the American Bar Association deemed him as being unanimously ‘‘well qualified’’ — his time to come before the Senate for an open hearing, answer questions under oath, and receive a vote on the floor of the Senate.

Patty Murray, Washington

Do you know what else could have happened in this time period? We could have gone through the confirmation process for the last Republican-nominated Justice twice and still have 11 days leftover. We could have sailed around the world almost four times or flown to the moon and back 30 times, but Senate Republicans have refused to even hold one hearing for Judge Merrick Garland.

Cory Booker, New Jersey

I know the good the Senate can do for Americans across the country. Part of our obligation is to ensure a functioning judicial system that can deliver justice for America. This Senate is failing to uphold its duty now and has plunged our Nation into a level of judicial crisis that is unacceptable. We can and we must do better.

Charles Schumer, New York, Senate Judiciary Committee member

Unlike their promise to ‘‘get the Senate back to work,’’ they have kept their promise not to do their jobs when it comes to the Supreme Court and so many other issues. It certainly is not because they have been too busy. In the last 200 days since the President nominated Judge Garland, instead of giving him a fair hearing and vote, the Republican Senate has taken the longest recess in 60 years.

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota, Senate Judiciary Committee member

If we do not have a fully staffed Court in the next term, we risk more cases in which the Court is unable to issue binding precedent and in which access to justice is denied for too many Americans. In some decisions where there is a 4–4 split, the result is effectively the same as if the Supreme Court had never heard the case. That is certainly not what our Founding Fathers intended with the Constitution.

Chris Coons, Delaware, Senate Judiciary Committee member

This Chamber alone cannot heal a divided country with a single committee hearing. We cannot heal congressional dysfunction with just one vote, but these actions could serve as the first in a series of concrete steps to help repair the dysfunction and the division in our Senate. We should start by holding public hearings, by letting the people of the United States understand what, if any, questions or concerns there might be about this talented, capable, decent man, Judge Merrick Garland, who has been nominated to the Supreme Court, and then build on that momentum by giving timely, thorough consideration to the President’s other nominees for judgeships across the country.

Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut, Senate Judiciary Committee member

That confirmation process is stymied and stopped, stalled now by bipartisan paralysis that reinforces the misimpression among the public that the Supreme Court may simply be another part of the political process. The Supreme Court should be above politics. This dysfunction and dereliction of duty does damage to our democracy because it drags the Supreme Court into the muck and morass of partisan politics and deprives it of the credibility and trust that are the underpinning of its force as a democratic institution.

Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire

The majority party’s refusal, to date, to consider the nomination of Judge Garland is a shocking break with Senate tradition. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution is unambiguous about the respective duties and responsibilities of the President and the Senate when there is a Supreme Court vacancy. I do not believe the Founders intended that these rules should be optional or should be something that could be disregarded. Article II states that the President ‘‘shall hold this office during the term of four years’’ — not 3 years, not 3 years and 1 month, but 4 full years.

As the speeches on the Senate floor unfolded, advocates rallied outside the U.S. Capitol, joined by Leader Reid and Sen. Klobuchar.

“The nomination of Merrick Garland is the most outrageous example of how Senate Republicans — starting with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley — are shirking their responsibilities,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference. “Next week, the Supreme Court will begin a new term as it ended the last one — with only eight of nine justices on the bench. And that spells trouble for justice in our nation — more tie decisions and even non-decisions from a court that cannot function short-handed. This is simply outrageous and cannot be allowed to continue a single day longer.”

More senators, including Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Dianne Feinstein of California, and Tom Carper of Delaware, tweeted to tell Senate Republicans to do their job.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats released a report outlining the Republican Senate’s record of inaction and obstruction. The Supreme Court was a part of that report, with Garland’s nomination quantified this way: “Now, Judge Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court has been waiting for a hearing for longer than any other nominee in modern history. Since 1949, every nomination to the Supreme Court received a hearing within 82 days. Judge Garland has already been waiting more than twice that long.”

The Supreme Court begins its new term next Tuesday, October 4, with only eight justices. Senators — who will return from recess on November 14, after the election — are on track to work the fewest number of days in 60 years.

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