President Obama nominates Merrick Garland to US Supreme Court

President Barack Obama has nominated Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, to take up the vacant position at the US Supreme Court.

The nomination follows the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last month.

Garland was appointed to the DC court in 1997 and was promoted to chief judge in 2013. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1977, he served as a clerk to the former Supreme Court justice William Brennan.

He later joined law firm Arnold & Porter and served as partner from 1985 to 1989 and for an additional year in 1992. In 1994, he served as principal associate deputy attorney general in DC until his appointment to the DC circuit.

Garland’s nomination opens up a new battle between Obama and the Senate. A majority in the Senate has to approve the president’s nomination. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will block any appointment of a new justice until the presidential election has concluded in November. The Republican Party currently holds a majority in the Senate.

Obama said he sees Garland as a consensus nominee, stating that “no one is more qualified to serve our country right now in this critical role”.

“Judge Garland has earned bipartisan praise as one of the best appellate judges in the country—a brilliant, meticulous jurist with a reputation for building consensus.”

In 1997, majorities from both the Republicans and Democrats backed his appointment to the DC court.

On the role of the DC court, Garland previously said that its job is “to apply the law to the facts of the case before it—not to legislate, not to arrogate to itself the executive power, not to hand down advisory opinions on the issues of the day”.