March 16, 2016

Obama nominates Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on U.S. Supreme Court

President Obama announced he would nominate Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court, replacing the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Garland, 63, is chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. According to multiple newspaper stories, Garland was a finalist for the two Supreme Court vacancies that Obama eventually filled with Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reiterated Wednesday that the GOP-controlled Senate would refuse to consider Garland’s nomination, asserting in a series of tweets that Obama made the nomination “to politicize it for the purposes of the election.”

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said he fully supports that stand. “We should let the American people decide the direction of the court,” he said in a statement Wednesday.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.