SCOTUS Brief 4/25/2016
Washington Post: “Leader of the opposition” Carrie Severino discusses why Garland won’t be confirmed to the Supreme Court – CNN: Garland nomination not getting traction, “Nice try, Mr. President” – ICYMI: Independent review of polling on Garland nomination shows less than a third of Americans have heard “a lot” about the issue
To keep up with conservative & legal experts on Twitter follow:
- In a Q and A with the Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis, Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel Carrie Severino discusses why Merrick Garland won’t be confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice.
Washington Post: The leader of the opposition to Merrick Garland explains why he’ll never be on the Supreme Court
“Since Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in February, the Judicial Crisis Network has been on the front lines of the conservative fight to keep President Obama from filling the unexpected vacancy on the Supreme Court. Founded in 2004 as the Judicial Confirmation Network to press for Senate approval of President George W. Bush’s court nominees, the group is now coordinating the efforts of activist groups across the conservative firmament and has spent millions of dollars on TV and digital ads pressuring Republican senators to deny Obama’s nominee hearings or votes. The effort has been, so far, remarkably successful. In the five weeks since Obama nominated U.S. Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland to the high court, Garland has met with 10 Republican senators, and none subsequently changed their views on whether the Senate should act… ‘The Democrats have tried to take every opportunity they have, they’ve poured millions of dollars into attacking Republican senators without any real effect. The Republican coalition has held firm, and I think you’ve seen people coming out of those meetings even more convinced that Judge Garland is not the right person to carry on in Justice Scalia’s footsteps. In the middle of an election year it makes the most sense to let the people have a voice.’”
- In a panel discussion on CNN’s Inside Politics, AP’s Julie Pace says the Garland nomination is not resonating with swing voters in focus groups she observed.
CNN’s Inside Politics: Garland nomination not gaining traction. “Nice try, Mr. President”
Julie Pace: I sat in on some focus groups this past week with both swing voters and Republican voters, and some of the questions they were asked were about the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland. And this was a real reality check for anyone in Washington who thinks that this issue is really animating voters across the country. I was so struck by how these voters seemed comply uninterested in the nomination fight. Among the swing voters, not one of them said that this was something that would really impact their vote in the fall. And even among the Republican voters who felt like this nomination should wait until the next president, almost none felt like this was an issue that was going to affect their vote either in the presidential race or in their Senate race.
John King: Nice try Mr. President, I guess is the result.
- ICYMI: iMediaEthics’ independent review of polling on the Merrick Garland nomination shows the public polling is omitting important context about how important the Supreme Court nomination is to voters in the middle.
iMediaEthics: PollCheck: Do Americans Really Want Merrick Garland Confirmed to the Supreme Court?
“While the forced-choice question format can pressure respondents to give an opinion even if they don’t have one, a question that provides an explicit option of ‘unsure’ reassures respondents that it’s okay to admit they don’t have an opinion. As noted earlier, in the iMediaEthics poll, half the sample was given the “unsure” option. The results show that fully a majority (57%) of respondents admitted they really didn’t know whether Merrick Garland should be confirmed or not…That a majority of Americans might be unsure whether Merrick Garland should be confirmed seems more plausible than the results of the four polls noted earlier, which suggest that the vast majority of Americans have a meaningful opinion on the issue. As both the Pew and iMediaEthics polls show, less than a third of the public has heard ‘a lot’ about the issue.”
