President Obama nominated the moderate Judge Merrick B. Garland on Wednesday to fill the spot left vacant in the Supreme Court by Justice Antonin Scalia. But the road to confirmation is an uphill battle: Senate Republicans have sworn to reject any nominee picked by Obama — even though seven sitting GOP senators voted to confirm Garland for another post in the past.
"To my knowledge, no one, absolutely no one, disputes the following: Merrick B. Garland is highly qualified to sit on the D.C. Circuit. His intelligence and his scholarship cannot be questioned," current Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah had said on the Senate floor.
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