President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court sets up a dramatic political fight with Senate Republicans who have vowed to block any replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "It is the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on a President and withhold its consent."
In a speech in the White House Rose Garden, Obama called Garland “one of America's sharpest legal minds” whose “qualities and his long commitment to public service have earned him the respect and admiration from leaders from both sides of the aisle."
Obama called on the Senate to give Garland -- the chief judge for the Washington, D.C., appeals court -- a “fair hearing” and an “up-or-down vote.” To do otherwise, he said, “would be a betrayal of our best traditions.”
In emotional remarks, Garland said Obama's decision to nominate him is "the greatest honor of my life" -- other than his wife agreeing to marry him.
“Trust that justice will be done in our courts without prejudice or partisanship is what, in a large part, distinguishes this country from others,” Garland said.
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