Sen. Chuck Grassley: It's 'common sense' to not fill Supreme Court vacancy

Sen. Chuck Grassley.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In a Des Moines Register op-ed, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) defended his opposition to holding hearings on Merrick Garland, President Obama's pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia.

Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other GOP leaders have adamantly said they will not hold hearings on Garland. In his op-ed, Grassley argued that it's "absurdity" to believe that "the federal judiciary is debilitated without a ninth Supreme Court justice for a brief period of time." The Supreme Court was established with only six justices, he wrote, and "no one would call members of the first Congress that passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, like James Madison, or George Washington, who signed it into law, un-American."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.