Merrick Garland named Supreme Court nominee by Barack Obama

Senate Republicans have been invoking Vice President Joe Biden’s name a lot recently as rationale to delay the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

But after weeks of hearing Republicans cite the “Biden Rule,“ referencing a speech Biden made in 1992 where he argued that the president (then Republican George H.W. Bush) shouldn’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year, the vice president is reclaiming his name.

While the official organs of progressive politics have been broadly supportive of Merrick Garland’s nomination to serve on the Supreme Court, privately left-of-center Washington is full of complaints. Garland is both older and less liberal than other potential choices, and it seems very likely that Republicans will block him anyway. Hasn’t Obama learned that this accommodationist strategy didn’t work for him in 2010 and 2011, while a harder-line turn in his second term produced results?

But the best explanation for picking Garland, as far I can tell, is actually pretty simple: Obama would like to get a Supreme Court nominee confirmed by the United States Senate.

At first glance, President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court would seem to be a great deal for Republicans.

Garland is a liberal, but on the moderate end of the spectrum. He’s 63 years old, meaning his tenure on the Court could be relatively short. And crucially, with Donald Trump dominating the Republican primaries, the chances that Democrats will sweep to victory in 2016 and appoint an even more liberal Scalia replacement appear to be rising.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced his nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court: DC Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland. The nomination quickly drew praise from Democrats, many of whom called on the Senate to give Garland a fair hearing and vote.

But some liberals may end up cautious about Garland’s nomination. His record suggests he could continue the tough-on-crime approach that’s come under increased scrutiny by criminal and racial justice reformers over the past few years.

Judge Merrick Garland, whom President Obama just named as his Supreme Court nominee earlier today, is a distinguished graduate of Harvard Law School.

As are nine of the past 25 justices to serve on the court. Another six went to Yale, bringing the number of justices not educated at Harvard or Yale to 10 of 25.

In picking a Supreme Court nominee, President Obama faced a strategic political choice: Should he nominate a strong progressive, a nominee of color, and/or a woman to mobilize the Democratic base in advance of the 2016 election? Or was it smarter to pick someone more moderate, someone whom some Republicans had already voted for, and try to force uncomfortable divisions within the fissuring Republican Party.

In nominating Merrick Garland, Obama has clearly decided on the second strategy. And it is surely not a coincidence that Obama made this announcement the day after Trump knocked Rubio out of the presidential race and continued his steady march toward becoming the Republican nominee.

President Barack Obama nominated US Circuit Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court Wednesday for a simple reason: Garland has a moderate reputation and strong bipartisan appeal.

But one definition of “moderate” is someone with as many liberal enemies as conservative ones. In Garland’s case, the issue that gives him so much cred with conservatives is the very issue that gives liberals pause: criminal justice.