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What They're Saying in Pennsylvania about the Supreme Court Nomination

Summary: 
Leaders in Pennsylvania are speaking out and telling Senate Republicans to do their job.

Across the state, Pennsylvanians continue to speak out against Senate Republicans’ refusal to do their job and give Judge Garland a hearing and vote. From local newspapers to business leaders, Pennsylvania voices have sounded a disappointed tone in Senator Toomey’s decision to inject partisanship into the Supreme Court and in his refusal to carry out certain parts of his job for partisan gain. They have asked Senator Toomey to follow Senator Casey’s lead, and support hearings and a vote for Judge Garland.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Test For Toomey: Do Your Job, Or Voters Will Elect A Senator Who Will (Editorial). “Mr. Toomey is among the Republican senators who have refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of appeals court Judge Merrick Garland for a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Last week Mr. Toomey said he would meet with Judge Garland ‘out of courtesy and respect for both the president and the judge.’ But the senator, who will face a Democratic challenger in the fall, still believes the court vacancy, created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, should not be filled this year.  Senate Republicans have made flimsy arguments that the seat should be filled by the American people, so to speak, based on their votes for president in November. That’s a ridiculous assertion that has no basis in the Constitution. Despite the fact that Judge Garland is a former prosecutor who has been tough on criminal justice and earned the past praise of Republicans, Mr. Toomey and his GOP colleagues are pursuing a brazenly political gambit. Instead of doing their duty by holding a hearing and voting Judge Garland up or down, they are blocking his appointment in the hope that a Republican will be the next president and will name someone who is more conservative.”

Scranton Times Tribune: Toomey Skirts Accountability (Editorial). “He and his obstructionist colleagues hope that the appointment ultimately will be made by a Republican president to prevent a majority of Democratic appointees to the court. They couch that blatantly political objective in grand terms, saying that the voters in the impending presidential election should have a say in selecting the next justice.  But voters already had a say in selecting President Obama, twice, and there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes Mr. Toomey and his cohorts to invalidate the last year of a presidential term.  Because Mr. Toomey also is up for election, it is crucial that he endorse a fair confirmation process for Judge Garland. His opposition to the nomination best would be expressed in a formal vote — for which voters could hold him accountable — rather than in blatant obstruction and his impression from a brief meeting with the nominee.”

Penn Live: Free Pa's federal judicial nominees from Senate limbo (Editorial). “That Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell waited just hours after announcement of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death to announce that the Senate would not, no way, no how, consider filling the vacancy this year should hardly have come as a surprise. The Senate's Republican majority has made an absolute fetish of blocking President Barack Obama's judicial appointments – an obstructionist posture that has burdened benches across the nation, particularly in Pennsylvania. It's not new. Even before they held the majority, Senate Republicans routinely blocked movement on the president's nominees, filibustering mercilessly and delaying, sometimes for more than a year, even those judges who were eventually approved all but unanimously. Laughably, when the president offered nominations to fill three vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2013, GOP leaders accused him of trying to "pack the court." The reference was to President Franklin Roosevelt's ill-fated 1937 effort to add several seats to the U.S. Supreme Court. Obama was simply carrying out his duty to fill existing judicial vacancies. Republicans didn't care….Toomey is urging fellow Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Idaho, Judiciary Committee chairman, to advance Colville and Younge out of committee and on to a floor vote. His advocacy is commendable, but that Toomey continues to simultaneously (and heartily) block the president's Supreme Court nominee is an irony that is hard to ignore….They should remember that in withholding timely consideration of judicial nominees, it is not the president they are punishing; it is deluged federal judges and the American citizens they strive to serve.”

Scranton Times Tribune: Shooting his credibility (Editorial). “Now, Mr. McConnell has shot what remains of his credibility by asserting that he will not allow a confirmation process even after the presidential election in November unless a nominee is favored by two narrow interests — the National Rifle Association and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.  Both of those lobbying groups are, of course, entitled to their opinions about any nominee and entitled to lobby regarding confirmation. But neither should be endowed by Mr. McConnell with the power to pre-empt a nominee.  His conduct particularly is egregious regarding the NRA. It objects to the Garland appointment on the basis of two cases.  But as noted in a letter to Mr. McConnell by a dozen Second Amendment experts from law schools across the United States, the NRA adopted a characteristically extremist interpretation of Judge Garland’s role in those cases. In one, he voted to approve a full-court hearing by the entire Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on a gun case that had been heard by a three-judge panel. In the other, he was among a group of judges who ruled that the Department of Justice had not established a gun registry by temporarily retaining background check records for the purpose of an audit.  Mr. McConnell has solidified his record as an extreme obstructionist. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and other members of his caucus should convince him to become responsible.”

Daily Item: Meet Nominee And Cast Vote (Editorial). “Shame on Sen. Toomey.  The American people have twice entrusted Barack Obama to make this decision. There is an appropriate constitutional check-and-balance already in place to assure the right person reaches the bench. It’s why the president nominates and the Senate confirms.  At the very least the Senate should bring Garland before the entire body. If the GOP-controlled Senate wants to reject Garland – a tough sell considering he was called a ‘consensus nominee’ by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) after he was overwhelmingly confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals nearly two decades ago – then it can proceed.  Toomey’s belief that waiting for a new president ‘is the best approach’ to overcome what could be a potential shift in the ‘balance’ of the court’ isn’t what’s best for the people of America, and his constituents in Pennsylvania. It rather represents the best outcome for his party.  Sen. Toomey faces re-election this fall. He is now one of nine Republican senators who have agreed to meet with Garland – six others are also facing re-election. We hope the meeting leads the senator to a change of heart and a shift toward doing the job Pennsylvania voters sent him to Washington to do.”

Pocono Record: Obstructionism and the Supreme Court (Editorial). “By Republican fiat, U.S. presidential terms are now three years, not four. That, in essence, is what Republican senators are saying when they deny Supreme Court judicial nominee Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote on whether he would be a suitable replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. Immediately after Scalia’s death, Republicans declared they would not even consider any nominee put forward by Democratic President Barack Obama, because it is a presidential election year, and the ‘people’ should be able to choose. Well, every fourth year is a presidential election year. Must presidents, therefore, sit out decision-making during that year, lest what they accomplish be nullified by their successor? By this reasoning, every senator now serves for five years, not six (despite what the U.S. Constitution says), and congressmen get just one year, not two. Like the president, they would have to sit out the last year of their term. That would include Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who's adhering to the party line by supporting the refusal to consider Garland. Toomey is running for re-election to another six- er, five-year term.”

York Dispatch: Do your jobs (Editorial). “‘But this time, Senator McConnell wants to run out the clock until the election — ignoring historical precedent and the Senate’s constitutional duty,’ Common Cause wrote. The political advocacy organization began an initiative on March 16, marking 84 days until June 8 — the date by which the Senate should accept or reject Garland’s nomination. The initiative includes encouraging the public to use its website, Senatedoyourjob.org, to see if its state representatives plan to ‘do their jobs’ and consider the Garland nomination. Once you have looked up your senator and their position (these are largely along party lines, though a handful of Republicans have broken ranks to say they would participate in hearings), you can contact them and implore them to do their jobs. This is obstructionist game-playing and nothing more. Shame on these representatives who are putting their own partisan political ambitions above the good of the country. If you believe, as we do, that it’s time for Pat Toomey and others to stop playing political games with the highest court in the land, go online and tell them it’s time to do their jobs.”

Daily Item: The course of human events (Editorial). “‘He (the president) shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other ministers and councils, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States...’  We don’t see any reference to waiting around for the next election.  When in the course of human events the president has fulfilled his constitutional duty by nominating a judge to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, it also is the constitutional duty of the U.S. Senate to meet with the nominee, hold hearings, deliberate and vote for or against confirmation.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Senate must set a hearing for Judge Garland (Editorial). “Now Senate Republicans are putting bald politics above a constitutional duty, inviting an eight-member Supreme Court to deadlock 4-4 on major issues for 10 months or more. It is a naked attempt by a self-neutered legislature to hamstring the third branch of government. What the Senate must do instead is hold the requisite committee hearing on Judge Garland and then take a floor vote on whether it considers him qualified. If Republican senators, including Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, refuse to do their duty, voters will hold them responsible.”

Citizens Voice: Worthy nominee deserves Senate consideration (Editorial). “President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court of eminently qualified federal appellate Judge Merrick Garland is sound for the sake of the court. But it also further illuminates the blind political obstruction of Senate Republicans who have vowed to ignore any nomination. They include Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, who seeks re-election while belligerently refusing to do his job… The Republican National Committee actually has established a ‘war room’ to denigrate Garland as if he were a political candidate. Expect a flurry of negative ads.  Toomey should extract himself from this obstructionist strategy and exercise leadership in behalf of the country by advocating an open and honest confirmation process.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: Politics wrong scale to weigh Obama, Christie nominees (Editorial). “The stakes are too high to treat the appointment of a Supreme Court justice like a game of poker. Garland should be granted a fair hearing because that is the Senate's constitutional role in this process. Regardless of Obama's political motives, he has nominated someone who appears to be strongly suited for the position.”

Scranton Times-Tribune: Toomey must do his job (Editorial). “President Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court of eminently qualified federal appellate Judge Merrick Garland is sound for the sake of the court. But it also further illuminates the blind political obstruction of Senate Republicans who have vowed to ignore any nomination. They include Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, who seeks re-election while belligerently refusing to do his job.  In 2010, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Mr. Obama that Judge Garland would be a ‘terrific’ Supreme Court nominee and predicted that he would be confirmed ‘virtually unanimously.’ Now, Mr. Hatch is among Republican leaders in the Senate vowing to block the appointment.  Among the obstructionists are seven Republican senators who voted in 1997 to confirm Judge Garland when he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which widely is considered to be the nation’s second-most-important appellate court. It is the incubator not only of many constitutionally important cases that ultimately are decided by the Supreme Court, but the proving ground for many appellate judges who aspire to join the Supreme Court. Judge Garland, 63, is now the chief judge of that court, where he has served with distinction while compiling a record as a centrist.  There is no valid reason, based on merit, to prevent Judge Garland from succeeding the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell, having woefully failed in his stated objective of making Mr. Obama a one-term president, are trying to invalidate the last year of Mr. Obama’s second term by creating the longest Supreme Court vacancy in history.  The Republican National Committee actually has established a ‘war room’ to denigrate Judge Garland as if he were a political candidate. Expect a flurry of negative ads.  Mr. Toomey should extract himself from this obstructionist strategy and exercise leadership in behalf of the country by advocating an open and honest confirmation process.”

Steve Masters, President of JustLaws: “We can't restore consumer confidence and sustain a growing economy unless our Congress ends its senseless partisan gridlock and fully takes up its role as our nation's leaders. That includes the Senate following its Constitutional mandate to consider President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court.”

Lou Camerlengo, President and Co-founder of Five Star Development, Inc.: “We have a duly elected president who has the right to submit a nominee to the Supreme Court. Waiting a year or more for such a critical decision would be ludicrous in the business world.”