Michael Hernandez
March 16, 2016•Update: March 22, 2016
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland to America’s highest court, setting up a showdown with Republican senators who vowed they will not confirm any nominee.
Garland, 63, is currently the chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – often referred to as the second most important court in the country.
He is widely seen as a moderate on the bench, and is well regarded by conservatives and liberals alike.
If confirmed, he will replace noted conservative jurist Justice Antonin Scalia whose death last month prompted senate leaders to maintain that no nominee should be considered until a new president is elected.
But Obama had vowed that he would nominate an "eminently qualified" candidate to fill the vacancy, and he made the case that he did just that at the White House.
"I've made my decision," Obama said during a press conference in the Rose Garden with Garland and Vice President Joe Biden looking on. "I've selected a nominee who is 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."
"He is the right man for the job. He deserves to be confirmed," Obama added.
Unconvinced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted just minutes after the announcement that Obama "made this #SCOTUS nominee not w/ the intent of ever seeing them confirmed but in order to politicize it for purposes of the election".
It's uncertain if the Senate will even hold a hearing on Garland, much less confirm the nominee, but McConnell's comments do not portend a change in mind among the Senate's leadership.
Garland graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School before beginning his legal career as a legal clerk including for justice William Brennan Jr., the noted liberal justice.
He was a partner at a leading Washington law firm before entering the Justice Department where he climbed the ranks to become chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Garland said the nomination is "the greatest honor of my life", while his voice cracked with emotion.
"Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life. And is the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years," he said. "If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course."
