President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in the Supreme Court. The announcement was made Wednesday at an 11 am news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House.
63 year old Merrick Garland currently serves as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Obama believes Garland is more than qualified to fill the position, saying Garland 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. These qualities and his long commitment to public service have earned him the respect and admiration from leaders from both sides of the aisle.”
“I simply ask Republicans in the Senate to give him a fair hearing, and then an up or down vote,” said President Obama during his announcement. “If you don’t, then it will not only be an abdication of the Senate’s constitutional duty, it will indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair.”
“This is the greatest honor of my life,” Garland said after thanking the president, while putting this honor only second to his marriage and birth of his daughters. “As my parents taught me by both words and deeds, a life of service is as much a gift to the person that serves as it is to those he is serving. For me there could be no higher public service than to serve as a member of the United States Supreme Court.”
Garland, a Chicago native and graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, would be the oldest Supreme Court nominee since Lewis Powell, who was 64 when he was confirmed in late 1971.
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