On Wednesday, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, for the Supreme Court, in a move to fill the seat left by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13. Garland and Vice President Biden flanked Obama as they strode out together into the Rose Garden, where the president gave a 20-minute introduction of his nominee. Said Obama of the 63-year-old Garland, “[He’s] widely recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but also someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness, and excellent.”
Garland has long been considered for a nomination to the Supreme Court, but President Obama opted to select Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, when seats were vacated, in 2009 and 2010, respectively. This time around, however, Obama chose Garland, who graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and is considered a moderate. In 1997, the Senate confirmed Garland to the U.S. Court of Appeals, with a vote of 76-23, with 32 Republicans supporting the justice.
“This is the greatest honor of my life,” said Garland, about his nomination, “other than Lynn agreeing to marry me 28 years ago.” So let’s meet Garland, and learn about his experience in the field of law, in his own words.
Meet Chief Judge Merrick Garland, the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court. #SCOTUSnominee https://t.co/ACujysyyDJ
— SCOTUS Nomination (@SCOTUSnom) March 16, 2016
Garland, a Chicago native, is Jewish and, if confirmed, which seems unlikely, is the fourth sitting Jewish Supreme Court Justice (Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg). In his speech at the Rose Garden, Garland said: “My family deserves much of the credit for the path that led me here. My grandparents left the Pale of Settlement at the border of western Russia and Eastern Europe in the early 1900s, fleeing anti-Semitism and hoping to make a better life for their children in America.”
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.
