The refusal by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders in the chamber to conduct hearings on President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court was the focus of this month’s Louisville Forum discussion.
Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the high court, but Senate Republicans say they won’t consider any nominees until a new president takes office in January.
One of the Louisville Forum panelists was Democratic State Senator Morgan McGarvey. “This is nothing more than a political stunt by the Republican majority to drive their base to the polls in November. That’s what this is about. And it’s that simple. We can talk about the history, we can talk about the Constitution, we can debate all that. But let’s recognize this for exactly what it is," McGarvey says.
McConnell field representative Andrew Condia was among the forum panelists. He says the Senate is exercising its constitutional right. “And that is to serve as a check on President Obama and the executive branch. If Americans want the Senate to change the ideological tilt of the court for an entire generation, then I can only imagine we’ll see a President Clinton or a President Sanders in January, 2017, and perhaps and Democratic Senate," Condia says.
