Merrick Garland was a standout student. President of the Student Council, class valedictorian, and distinctions as both a Presidential Scholar and National Merit Scholar were just some of his early achievements in high school.
He attended Harvard for his undergraduate education, and graduated as valedictorian in 1974. He attended Harvard law school and graduated magna cum laude in 1977.
A quick scan of his post-law school career highlights the achievements of a man who was a hard worker, and deeply driven to practice law at the highest levels. Generally viewed as a centrist and moderate, he has been described by many as ‘brilliant’. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what level of brilliance he might have brought to the Supreme Court.
After his nomination by then-President Barack Obama to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia, Merrick was denied a confirmation vote by the Senate majority leader. In fact, he was even denied a meeting by many of the republican senators at that time. Those who did meet with him only did so as a courtesy, and not for any real purpose in fulfilling their duty to fill the SCOTUS vacancy.
The seat was left vacant by the Senate majority leader for nearly a year. He explained that since it was an election year, the people needed to have their say about the next Supreme Court justice via their vote for President. It was total bullshit, and we all knew it. But there was nothing that could be done.
The rest is history. Hillary Clinton lost the election, and Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court expired on January 3, 2017. Neil Gorsuch was nominated by the new president on January 31 and later confirmed by the republican Senate. Thus ended the story of one of the great thefts of a SCOTUS seat… until now.
Surrounded by her family, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg succumbed to metastatic pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2020. The loss of this brilliant jurist was made all the worse when republican leadership vowed to vote on a nominee for her non-vacant seat EVEN THOUGH the presidential election would be held just over 6 weeks later.
Having previously made the Supreme Court an extension of the republican White House, we are now at a crossroads in our country with an extraordinary risk to Roe v Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and the ability to hold presidents accountable to their illegal actions both in and out of office.
I know little about the latest SCOTUS nominee, and the little that I’ve heard about her doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. In the end, however, she doesn’t really matter to me. Per the Senate majority leader’s own words and actions with Merrick Garland, her nomination is illegitimate, and she is merely another tool being used by republican leadership to protect their ideological interest and the corrupt actions of the current president.
Even if Joe Biden wins the presidency, the damage will be done and irreparable. But there is one hope. Cross your fingers for a Biden win AND an increase of Supreme Court seats from 9 to 11… with Merrick Garland in one of those seats.
This is why I have lost a lot of hope. I don’t have the confidence that the Dems will play hardball the way that they need to and must die the sake of a return to “normalcy” and familiar rules. How do we do that when the other party refuses to play by them? I truly don’t know where we go from here.