WASHINGTON – Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin called on the Senate Majority Republicans to "do their job" Tuesday and hold hearings for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.
"Don't deny the president that won by five million votes over Mitt Romney" to have an opportunity to nominate his choice to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat, Durbin said on the Senate floor Tuesday:
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The Constitution only says the president will nominate a justice with the advice and consent of the Senate. President Obama has every right to nominate someone and the Senate has every right to refuse to consent. That is part of the checks and balances that our founders set up. I think the founders had one thing right for their time but wrong for ours. They stipulated lifetime appointment of justices and judges because they wanted to insulate them from political passions and that was fine for 1789. But in 2016, the Supreme Court is a third political branch of government and it is not elected for that purpose. High Courts in most western nations have some sort of term limit that usually does not exceed 12 to 18 years. It is time for America to limit the terms of judges. Otherwise, the stakes are too high.
Miguel Estrada, Janice Rodgers Brown, Charles Pickering
Yes, but first, I call for a legitimate sitting president, because we have an illegitimate president in the white house who should not be allowed to appoint a justice.
Obama is NOT a natural born citizen and is therefore not qualified to be president.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Durbin!
Durbin is just attempting to out-liberal Mark Kirk.
Best of luck with that task Dickie-boy, ain’t gonna happen.
Sen Kirk, is out there saying he wants to vote on Obama’s justice nominee because he thinks the republicans should obey the constitution, yet Kirk refuses to sign the amicus brief that opposes Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty and demands Obama obey the constitution.
Kirk is a huge hypocrite!
On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led nearly four dozen Senate Republicans in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the 26 states challenging President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty programs.
In the amicus brief, the senators rightfully note that President Obama’s use of executive action to grant de facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens “stands in stark contravention to federal law and the constitutional principle of the separation of powers.” They add that the president’s executive overreach was an “explicit effort to circumvent the legislative process.”
While Majority Leader McConnell’s effort to file an amicus brief in support of the plaintiff-states should have had unanimous support from the Senate Republican Conference, it did not. Out of the 54-member conference, 43 senators signed the amicus brief, while 11 decided not to take a stand against amnesty and the administration’s usurpation of power only entrusted to the legislative body in which they serve.
The 43 Senate Republicans who joined the amicus brief are Senators Alexander, Barrasso, Blunt, Boozman, Capito, Cassidy, Coats, Cochran, Corker, Cornyn, Cotton, Crapo, Cruz, Daines, Enzi, Fischer, Graham, Grassley, Hatch, Hoeven, Inhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Lankford, Lee, McCain, McConnell, Moran, Paul, Perdue, Risch, Roberts, Rounds, Rubio, Sasse, Scott, Sessions, Shelby, Sullivan, Thune, Tillis, Vitter, and Wicker.
The 11 Senate Republicans who did not join the amicus brief are Senators Ayotte, Burr, Collins, Ernst, Flake, Gardner, Heller, Kirk, Murkowski, Portman, and Toomey.
More Democratic “newspeak.” Authority granted by the constitution is conflated with “duty.” If the Senate can approve a presidential nomination, why can they not deny it? If they can give advice, can they not withhold it?