(Photo: iStockPhoto; Wikimedia Commons; Taylor Le/Pacific Standard)
We’ve taken a break from misogyny and ISIS to talk about the vacant Supreme Court seat. Well, in case you forgot, there’s actually a real live human who was nominated by Barack Obama earlier this year. And, should Hillary Clinton win, we may finally see him take up the position.
In March, Obama nominated federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as the United States’ 113th Supreme Court justice. At the time, analysts predicted the nomination challenged Republican senators to stay steadfast in their refusal to consider a nomination in an election year; Garland, a liberal who leans centrist when it comes to issues of criminal defense and national security, should be more reliably progressive than Justice Anthony Kennedy, who, as I previously wrote, has gained a reputation in Washington as “something of a heterodox conservative.”
Of course, as Trump spirals downward in the polls, his Republican colleagues in the Senate are starting to consider confirming Garland.
