SCOTUS Brief PM Edition 3/16/2016
NY Times: A Supreme Court with Merrick Garland would be the most liberal in “nearly 50 years” – NY Mag’s John Heilemann in 2010: Garland Ideal To Move Court Left, Protect Obama’s Liberal Legacy – CNN’s Manu Raju: Dems happy about Garland because he “has a liberal, more progressive bend” – NRA Blasts Garland over Second Amendment
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- The New York Times’ Alicia Parlapiano and Margot Sanger-Katz write that if Merrick Garland is confirmed, it would be the most liberal Supreme Court “in decades.”
NY Times: A Supreme Court With Merrick Garland Would Be the Most Liberal in Decades
“Think about how Mr. Garland might shift the court’s balance of power. His addition would make the justice at the center of the court more liberal than at any point in nearly 50 years… We don’t yet know exactly how Mr. Garland would vote if he joined the court. But scholars believe that he will be substantially more liberal than Justice Scalia was. According to a ranking of Supreme Court and appeals court judges, Mr. Garland is expected to be ideologically similar to Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s previous picks for the court… If his past record is predictive, and Mr. Garland earns confirmation and votes with the court’s current liberal bloc, the new median justice will become Stephen Breyer, the most liberal median justice since 1937, when the scholarly rankings began.”
- Writing for NY Magazine in 2010, Bloomberg’s John Heilemann wrote that Merrick Garland would move the Supreme Court to the left and protect President Obama’s liberal legacy.
NY Mag in 2010: The President and the Persuader
“On some of the most important issues facing the court – the environment and labor law, to name two – Garland is every bit as progressive as Stevens, and much more so than the older judge was when he arrived on the high court. And Garland’s tendency toward statutory deference (a conservative principle, in the proper meaning of the term) should be seen as a crucial quality by Obama, among whose main goals with this pick must be to protect the legislative gains of his presidency.”
- CNN’s Manu Raju reports that Democrats are happy about President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland because he “has a liberal, more progressive bend in his background.”
CNN’s Manu Raju on CNN Newsroom this morning: “… a number of Democrats are happy about [Merrick Garland as the nominee] because they believe that he’s qualified for the post and also has a liberal, more progressive bend in his background which could fire up the Democratic base in this election year.”
- Politico’s Nick Gass writes that the NRA has announced it is “firmly opposed” to Merrick Garland’s confirmation as the next Supreme Court Justice because of his extreme liberal views on the Second Amendment.
Politico: NRA blasts Garland over Second Amendment
“The National Rifle Association’s Institute of Legislative Action announced Wednesday that it is firmly opposed to the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, highlighting the D.C. Circuit Court judge’s judicial record on the Second Amendment. ‘With Justice Scalia’s tragic passing, there is no longer a majority of support among the justices for the fundamental, individual right to own a firearm for self-defense. Four justices believe law-abiding Americans have that right – and four justices do not. President Obama has nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners,’ Chris Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement, remarking upon Obama’s past Supreme Court nominees and their own records on the issue. Cox concluded that ‘a basic analysis of Merrick Garland’s judicial record shows that he does not respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.’”
