Merrick Garland Battle Moves to Home Front as Senate Recesses

Senate Democrats held a news conference outside the Supreme Court. They urged Senate Republicans to proceed with the confirmation process for Judge Merrick B. Garland. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The fight over the vacancy on the Supreme Court shifted from close combat in the halls of Congress to a nationwide battle on Friday as senators returned to their home states for a two-week recess and Republican and Democratic leaders began aggressively making their cases in television and radio interviews, op-ed columns and public appearances.

With little hope of a confirmation hearing before the November elections, the debate over the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia is entering a critical phase — away from the corridors of power in Washington.

One clear sign that the issue was resonating in campaigns came Friday when Senator Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, who faces a difficult re-election campaign, categorically broke with the Republican leadership. Mr. Kirk said in a radio interview that his party should “man up and vote” on Mr. Obama’s choice, Judge Merrick B. Garland of the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia.

President Obama led the push for the Democrats in an interview on National Public Radio in which he urged Republicans to give fair consideration to his nominee. Mr. Obama described him as one of the best judges of his generation.

Judge Garland, the president said, “would help to burnish the sense that the Supreme Court is above politics and not just an extension of politics, and would set a good tone for restoring — or at least increasing — the American people’s confidence in our justice system.”

With no parliamentary tool available to Senate Democrats to force the Republican majority to take up the Garland nomination, the focus now turns to how big an issue the Supreme Court vacancy will be in the presidential election and in a number of key Senate races that could determine whether Republicans retain their majority.

Republican leaders, in refusing to hold hearings or a vote, have insisted that their position has nothing to do with any individual nominee but is intended to allow voters to decide the ideological tilt of the Supreme Court when they choose a new president.

Reiterating that position in an op-ed article in USA Today on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, wrote, “The next Supreme Court justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the court and our country for a generation, and the American people deserve a voice in such a momentous decision.”

“The American people may well elect a president who decides to renominate Judge Garland,” Mr. McConnell said. “The next president may also nominate someone very different.” The Senate will then look at the candidate he wrote, declaring: “That’s a fair approach. That’s a reasonable compromise. That’s the best way forward for our country now.”

Aides said Mr. McConnell would appear on four of the five major Sunday news shows to argue his position.

In response, Democrats have opened a nationwide campaign, portraying the Republicans as obstructionist and unreasonable. And there were initial indications that Democrats were gaining momentum; their rallying cry — “Do Your Job” — was trending nationally on Twitter.

“Democrats are going to be relentless, repetitive, and resolute in calling on our Republican colleagues to do their job across the country — but we won’t be alone,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who is positioned to take over as the Senate Democratic leader next year. “Americans of all political stripes agree that giving Judge Garland fair consideration for the Supreme Court is both our job as senators and the right thing to do.”

Mr. Obama, in his NPR interview, said he hoped Republicans would act out of a sense of duty to the institutions of American government and also out of basic fairness. “My simple pitch to them is: be fair,” Mr. Obama said.

“I’m not demanding that Republicans vote for Merrick Garland,” he said, “but do not stop the process in its tracks. Because if you do, then the ever-escalating, ever-worsening problems behind not just judicial nominees, but nominations generally, are going to continue to make our government more and more dysfunctional. And at some point, it’s got to stop.”

“A good place for it to stop,” the president said, “is when we’re talking about a Supreme Court seat and we have an impeccably qualified candidate who the Republicans themselves have acknowledged is deserving of being on the court.”

The breadth of the Democrats’ effort was clear in a television appearance on Friday morning by Senator Jon Tester of Montana at KBZK, the CBS-affiliate in Bozeman. Mr. Tester stopped well short of endorsing Judge Garland, who was confirmed for his current seat in 1997 long before the senator took office. But Mr. Tester made a forceful pitch for taking up the nomination.

“I really think the folks out there who think that we just ought to ignore this for the next 15 months not only are not doing their job, they are not following the Constitution,” Mr. Tester said. “I can’t imagine the forefathers when they drafted up the Constitution: ‘Say, when a justice passes away well let’s just wait 15 months before you put the next one in.’ ”

Judge Garland with President Obama at the White House the day his nomination was announced.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Tim

“Democrats are going to be relentless, repetitive, and resolute in calling on our Republican colleagues to do their job across the country — but we won’t be alone,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who is positioned to take over as the Senate Democratic leader next year. “Americans of all political stripes agree that giving Judge Garland fair consideration for the Supreme Court is both our job as senators and the right thing to do.”

Mr. Obama, in his NPR interview, said he hoped Republicans would act out of a sense of duty to the institutions of American government and also out of basic fairness. “My simple pitch to them is: be fair,” Mr. Obama said.

“I’m not demanding that Republicans vote for Merrick Garland,” he said, “but do not stop the process in its tracks. Because if you do, then the ever-escalating, ever-worsening problems behind not just judicial nominees, but nominations generally, are going to continue to make our government more and more dysfunctional. And at some point, it’s got to stop.”

“A good place for it to stop,” the president said, “is when we’re talking about a Supreme Court seat and we have an impeccably qualified candidate who the Republicans themselves have acknowledged is deserving of being on the court.”

The breadth of the Democrats’ effort was clear in a television appearance on Friday morning by Senator Jon Tester of Montana at KBZK, the CBS-affiliate in Bozeman. Mr. Tester stopped well short of endorsing Judge Garland, who was confirmed for his current seat in 1997 long before the senator took office. But Mr. Tester made a forceful pitch for taking up the nomination.

“I really think the folks out there who think that we just ought to ignore this for the next 15 months not only are not doing their job, they are not following the Constitution,” Mr. Tester said. “I can’t imagine the forefathers when they drafted up the Constitution: ‘Say, when a justice passes away well let’s just wait 15 months before you put the next one in.’ ”


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