Obama chooses Merrick Garland for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy of Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday, setting up an election year battle with Republicans who have vowed they would not meet with his candidate.

Speaking at a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, Obama said that Garland was "one of America's sharpest legal minds" and "uniquely prepared to serve immediately."

But he also issued a challenge to Senate Republicans, calling on them to give Garland a "fair hearing" and an "up-or-down vote."

"If you don't, then it will not only be an abdication of the Senate's constitutional duty, it will indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair," Obama said Wednesday. "The reputation of the Supreme Court will inevitably suffer, faith in our justice system will inevitably suffer, our democracy will ultimately suffer as well."

Garland, 63, serves as the chief judge of the appeals courts in Washington, D.C. and was also a finalist for the first two Supreme Court vacancies Obama filled. 

Garland was confirmed in 1997 with 32 Republicans voting in support of his nomination. Seven of those senators still serve in the Senate, but it's not clear that any of them will vote for Garland now.

Garland became chief judge of the D.C. federal appeals court in February 2013.

Speaking after Obama, Garland called his nomination "the greatest honor of my life," next to marrying his wife, Lynn.

"There could be no higher public service than serving as a member of the United States Supreme Court," Garland said.

Republican lawmakers have said since Scalia’s death that Obama should leave the choice of a new justice to his successor, vowing not to hold a hearing or a vote on the president’s pick.

"It is a president's constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court justice, and it is the Senate's constitutional right to act as a check on a president and withhold its consent," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor Wednesday after Obama's announcement.

McConnell also cited a floor speech then-Senator Joe Biden delivered in 1992, arguing that President George Bush should delay filling a Supreme Court vacancy until the presidential was over, and that it was "essential" that the Senate refuse to confirm a nominee until then.

"The Biden rule reminds us that the decision the Senate announced weeks ago, remains about a principle and not a person," McConnell said, accusing Obama of politicizing the nomination.

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While many Republicans slammed Obama for going ahead and naming a nominee, a handful of Republican senators signaled they would sit down with Garland, including New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

Earlier this week, the Republican Party launched a task force to campaign against Obama's eventual nominee.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus told The Associated Press that the RNC planned to "make sure Democrats have to answer to the American people for why they don't want voters to have a say in this process." 

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White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that Republican obstruction would be "bad for the court [and] inconsistent with the Constitution."

"Stalling his nomination and preventing him from serving on the Supreme Court at the beginning of the next term would be obstruction on a scale that is unprecedented in the last 40 years or so," Earnest said.

Asked if Garland was the president's first choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Earnest said "absolutely."

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