Cornyn said the next Supreme Court appointment will fill a big hole left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia for a generation and Judge Merrick Garland will not be receiving a senate hearing.
“With the ideological balance of the Supreme Court of the United at stake for another generation, I believe the voters and Texans deserve a say in the next livelong appointment to the Supreme Court," Cornyn said.
Garland, who has served as a federal appellate judge in Washington DC since 1997, is considered by many to be a moderate on the federal bench. And Austin attorney Paul Schauld, who served as a federal law clerk for Garland agreed with that assessment.
“He is the ideal judge, the kind of judge you want on the Supreme Court. He is extremely intelligent and really respects the rule of law and the constitution. He is a non-partisan judge," Schauld said.
But while Senate Republicans have said no to a hearing for Garland, those on the Senate Judiciary Committee, like Cornyn, have been working with the President on his picks for five federal judiciary vacancies in Texas. Cornyn said there’s a difference between these potential appointments and the President’s recent nomination to the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court has become a different kind of court as you know basically the Supreme Court has become politicized and this is too important and too much is at stake to let President Obama change the political makeup of the court," Cornyn explained.
Cornyn said a judge’s political ideologies don’t show up as often at the federal district level as they do on the Supreme Court.
