http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/24/obama-senate-gop-will-back-down-supreme-court-pick/Obama confident ‘sheepish’ Senate GOP will back down on SCOTUS pick
By Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Wednesday, February 24, 2016
President Obama predicted Wednesday that "sheepish" Senate Republicans will retreat under public pressure from their pledge to block his nominee for the Supreme Court, and said lawmakers would damage the federal judiciary if they don't back down.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans don't seem fully committed to their vow not to hold any hearings on the president's eventual nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
"I don't expect Mitch McConnell to say that is the case today," Mr. Obama said, adding that he has spoken to several of the Republican senators. "There's not a lot of vigor when they defend the position they're taking. They're pretty sheepish about it."
He added, "I get the politics of it, I'm sure they're under enormous pressure from their base and their constituencies around this issue. I've told them I'm sympathetic."
Mr. Obama brushed aside comments made by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, when he was Senate Judiciary chairman in 1992, that a president shouldn't nominate a Supreme Court candidate in an election year.
"First of all, we know senators say stuff all the time," Mr. Obama said. "Second of all, these were comments [in 1992] where there was no actual nomination. That's not the same. It has no application to the actual situation that we have right now."
All Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter Tuesday saying they won't hold a confirmation hearing on any nominee put forward by Mr. Obama for the Supreme Court. They said the next president should nominate a candidate in 2017.
The White House wouldn't comment on a Washington Post report Wednesday that Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, a moderate Republican, is among those being vetted for the lifetime job. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has been holding private discussions with the president about the nomination, which is expected within a few weeks.
The president said he will wage a public-relations battle so that "the American people are going to have the ability to gauge whether the person I nominate is well within the mainstream, is a good jurist, is somebody who's worthy of sitting on the Supreme Court."
"I think it will be very difficult for Mr McConnell to explain if the public concludes that this person is very well qualified, that the Senate should stand in the way simply for political reasons," Mr. Obama said.
If Senate Republicans don't back down, he said, "then invariably what we're going to see is a further deterioration of any president to make any judicial appointments."
"The credibility of the court itself is diminished because it is seen as an extension of our politics," Mr. Obama said.
Progressive groups were joining forces with the White House Wednesday, holding events and press conferences to try to shame Republicans into allowing a confirmation hearing. Some progressives said there would be social "chaos" if Mr. Obama's nominee is blocked, while some constitutional law specialists accused the senators of deliberately violating their oath to uphold the Constitution.
