What They’re Saying – Labor Community

AFL-CIO: “Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit brings impeccable credentials and deep experience to this nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the United States Supreme Court:

“‘Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit brings impeccable credentials and deep experience to this nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Judge Garland’s career shows a deep commitment to public service and to the rule of law.  These qualities are why he was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit 18 years ago by a bipartisan majority and with the strong support of then Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch.  Judge Garland is a superbly qualified nominee who deserves prompt consideration and confirmation by the United States Senate.  Working people deserve and expect no less.’” [AFL-CIO, 3/16/16]

National Education Association: “Merrick Garland Is Eminently Qualified, Has Impeccable Credentials, And Possesses A Mastery Of The Law. Chief Judge Garland's Service In Senior Positions In The Justice Department And His Nearly Two Decades On The D.C. Circuit Court Speaks Volumes About His Integrity And Qualifications To Serve On The Highest Court In The Land.”

“The following statement can be attributed to NEA President Lily Eskelsen García: 

“‘Now that President Obama has fulfilled his constitutional duty to nominate a Supreme Court justice, Senators must do their job. Merrick Garland is eminently qualified, has impeccable credentials, and possesses a mastery of the law. Chief Judge Garland's service in senior positions in the Justice Department and his nearly two decades on the D.C. Circuit Court speaks volumes about his integrity and qualifications to serve on the highest court in the land. Americans are counting on the Senate to do its job by considering the president’s nominee, hold a hearing and a vote. This is a duty that both political parties always have fulfilled. Never in our nation’s history has a Senate majority said they refuse to consider or vote on anyone nominated by the current president. By refusing to consider the president’s nominee, Senate Republicans are playing political games, delaying action on the Supreme Court nomination, caving to the extreme voices of its party, and putting politics ahead of its constitutional duty. I urge the Senate to move quickly to hold a hearing and a vote to confirm Judge Garland so that the court can continue to serve the American people at full strength.’” [NEA Press Release, 3/16/16]

Teamsters: “The President Has Made A Strong Choice For Our Next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Judge Garland Is A Highly Experienced, Well-Qualified Nominee, And A Good Choice For Working Families.”

“The following is the official statement of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

“‘The President has made a strong choice for our next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Judge Garland is a highly experienced, well-qualified nominee, and a good choice for working families. ‘Now that President Obama has made his choice for the nominee, Congress must not delay in doing its job and moving forward on the nomination. Our next Supreme Court justice deserves a full hearing and a vote in a timely manner. President Obama fulfilled his Constitutional duty by working to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Now it is time for Senator McConnell to exercise his leadership in moving forward with the nomination as prescribed by the laws of our land.’” [Teamsters Union Press Release, 3/16/16]
 

American Federation of Teachers: “Chief Justice Garland Is A Highly Qualified And Widely Respected Jurist Who Is Well-Known For Carefully Deciding Cases Based On Existing Law, Respect For Precedent And The Facts Presented. He Was Confirmed To The D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals By An Overwhelming Bipartisan Vote Of 76 To 23 In 1997.”

“Statement from AFT President Randi Weingarten on the Senate’s responsibility to consider President Obama’s nomination for the Supreme Court: 

“‘Today, after a careful and deliberate process, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland—chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Garland is a highly qualified and widely respected jurist who is well-known for carefully deciding cases based on existing law, respect for precedent and the facts presented. He was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 76 to 23 in 1997. ‘As we teach high school government students, the Constitution is crystal clear about what to do when there's a Supreme Court vacancy: The president of the United States nominates a candidate for the bench, and the Senate provides advice and consent. 

“‘The Constitution does not say the president shall nominate a justice—unless it is the fourth year of his term. Six times since 1900, the president has put forth a nominee during the final year of his term. All six—as well as Anthony Kennedy, who was nominated in November 1987 and confirmed in 1988—were given hearings and nearly all received an up-or-down vote. 

“‘For the last seven years, Senate Republicans have attempted to block President Obama at every turn, with no regard for the damage they inflicted on American families. Their stubborn refusal to consider a nominee puts politics over responsibility and, in so doing, dishonors our Constitution. The people of their states elected them to do a job. They swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. They are doing neither of those things. 

“‘So I have a simple message to Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, and other senators who say they will not even schedule a hearing. Working people across America get up every day and do our jobs. We expect the same from our United States senators. Do. Your. Job.’” [AFT Press Release, 3/16/16]

AFSCME: “President Obama Has Done The Job He Was Elected To Do By Nominating A Qualified Justice To The Supreme Court. Congress Must Now Do Its Job.”

“After decades of CEOs and corporations manipulating our nation’s rules to serve their interests, it is vitally important that the next U.S. Supreme Court justice brings balance to the highest Court in the land. The American people also deserve a Supreme Court that can function at full strength with nine qualified justices. President Obama has done the job he was elected to do by nominating a qualified justice to the Supreme Court. Congress must now do its job. To deprive the judicial branch of the government of a full Supreme Court bench in the name of political gamesmanship is an unprecedented level of obstruction.” [AFSCME Press Release, 3/16/16]

SEIU: “Judge Garland has had an illustrious career, throughout which he has demonstrated why he is a good choice for working families.”

“SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry issued the following statement today on President Obama’s announcement of Judge Garland as nominee to fill vacant Supreme Court seat:

“‘Working people need a government that works for them, not one that is ground to a halt by extremist special interests and the Senators who do their bidding. Today, President Obama has done what the American people need by nominating Judge Garland to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat. Now Senate Republicans must do their job and what’s in the best interest of the American people by giving Judge Garland a full hearing and up-or-down vote.

“‘Judge Garland has had an illustrious career, throughout which he has demonstrated why he is a good choice for working families. His record shows that he believes in the duty of government to protect regular Americans, and our democracy, from being corrupted by the excesses of the super wealthy and their corporate agenda. He has shown that he respects the opinion of the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that is charged with protecting workers’ right to join together in a union and bargain collectively, and he has upheld disclosure requirements to keep a check on the outsized influence ‘dark money’ has on our government.

“‘Anything less than granting Judge Garland a full hearing and vote is playing politics with the lives of millions of working families and their communities who will be affected by cases in front of the Supreme Court, and are poised to take this fight door to door in their communities all the way to the ballot box this November.

“‘With the cases before the Supreme Court the stakes are clear: nurses and firefighters’ ability to join together at work and have a voice in a union is at risk; immigrant are families in danger of being torn apart; the hard-fought right to vote is under attack by the attempt to unravel the fundamental principle of one person, one vote; and women’s reproductive health is in jeopardy. Inaction by the Senate is not an option.  It’s time for Senators to do their job and give Judge Garland a full hearing and a vote.’” [SEIU Press Release, 3/16/16]

United Steelworkers: “The GOP is expressing deep derision for the American democratic process by obstructing the duly elected President of the United States from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations.”

“Senate Republicans are flipping off the President of the United States by refusing to conduct a confirmation hearing for his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“By doing this, the majority party in the Senate is saying it doesn’t acknowledge that Barack Obama is the legitimate, twice-elected U.S. President with the right and duty under the U.S. Constitution to nominate justices to fill vacancies on the high court.

“Just as significantly, by doing this, Republicans are refusing to accept the decision of 65 million Americans who went to the polls in November of 2012 and re-elected Barack Obama as U.S. President. President Obama is the first commander in chief since 1956 to win 51 percent of the vote twice. Republicans are thumbing their noses at those citizens, the majority, who voted for President Obama. The GOP is expressing deep derision for the American democratic process by obstructing the duly elected President of the United States from fulfilling his Constitutional obligations.

“Before the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s body was cold, truly, less than an hour after his death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell placed self-serving politics above grace, sympathy and constitutionality. Forsaking public expression of condolence to Scalia’s widow and nine children, McConnell announced instead that Republicans would prevent the sitting President, who at that point still had a year minus three weeks and three days left to serve in office, from naming a replacement for Scalia.

“Rather than ‘I wish to send my deepest sympathies,’ McConnell said:

“‘The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.’

”That’s because Republicans don’t like the guy the American people used their voice to choose to be the current president. So Republicans want to give the American people another chance to do what Republicans want them to do.

“Ignoring McConnell’s attempt at power-usurping, President Obama last week nominated Chief Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Merrick B. Garland to fill Scalia’s vacancy.

“Part of the reason for President Obama’s choice is that he knows some Republicans like Garland. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, voted to confirm Garland’s appointment to the appeals court in 1997 and said in 2010 that Judge Garland would be a ‘consensus nominee’ to the Supreme Court who would be confirmed with bipartisan support. Earlier this month, Sen. Hatch said that if President Obama wanted a real moderate, he would nominate Judge Garland, but predicted, wrongly as it turns out, that the President wouldn’t do it.

“Despite Hatch’s prior support for Garland, the Senator has not called on McConnell to schedule the confirmation hearings that are the next step in a normal nomination process. No, like McConnell, Hatch wants to wait to see if he likes the voice of the American people in November better than when they spoke in 2008 and 2012. 

“The assertion from McConnell and fellow Republicans that the ‘American people should have a voice’ is doubly duplicitous coming from the party that has spent the past five years trying every trick in the book to deny large swaths of Americans their right to express their voice at the ballot box with all manner of voter-suppression legislation.

“It is Republicans trying to make students and old people and poor people jump through ridiculous and onerous hoops to exercise their sacred right as citizens to vote. Apparently Republicans don’t want to hear these people’s voices, probably because so many are the voices of Democrats.

“The truth about this let-the-American-people-have-a-voice gambit slipped out of the mouths of indiscreet Republicans after President Obama nominated the moderate Judge Garland. Hatch and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake are among the GOPers who revealed that they might hold confirmation hearings for Judge Garland after the Presidential election.

“Not if a Republican is elected, of course. But if the American people choose Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, either of whom is likely to nominate someone far more liberal than Judge Garland, then the Republicans would immediately go for the moderate Garland.

“If the GOP Senators did that, they would be ignoring the voice of the American people – people who had just voted for someone more liberal. That would be the voice of the American people that McConnell proclaimed was so very, very important before Justice Scalia’s body was cold.

“The court McConnell is playing with is crucial to working people. Before Justice Scalia died, for example, there was every expectation that his conservative bloc was going to outlaw fair share fees paid by workers in the public sector who choose not to join their union but who benefit from services provided by collective bargaining. This is a case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

“Private sector unions like mine knew that conservative groups would come after us next. Their intent is to starve workers out. If right wingers and their corporate backers can deprive labor organizations of fees for services provided, then workers won’t have the money they need for good research before collective bargaining or good lawyers to represent them in grievances against employers. Then big corporations win every time. And workers fall further and further behind.

“Now, however, Friedrichs will likely end in a 4-4 stalemate, reverting back to the lower court ruling, where the conservatives eagerly agreed to lose in their excessive hurry to get their appeal before their sure-bet Scalia. In the end, they outsmarted themselves.

“The U.S. Constitution states that the President ‘Shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint. . . judges of the Supreme Court.’ It doesn’t say, ‘except when the President is a Democrat and the majority in the Senate is Republican.’ It doesn’t say, ‘except in Presidential election years.’”

“In fact, the Senate has confirmed six Supreme Court justices in election years since 1912. In the most recent case, when Republican President Ronald Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, a majority Democrat Senate confirmed him, unanimously, in the Presidential election year of 1988.

“Antonin Scalia prided himself in being a strict Constitutionalist. If McConnell wants to stop the late justice from spinning in his grave, then the majority leader needs to order the Senate to perform its Constitutionally-mandated job by conducting a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland followed by a vote on his nomination to the Supreme Court.” [USW, 3/22/16]