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

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."

Justices have to sit out cases all the time, he continued, and "the sky didn't fall." Cases that are split evenly "will likely be few and far between," and the court can always "order a case to be reargued after the vacancy is filled." The Senate is doing the right thing by not holding hearings during a "hyper-partisan election year," he wrote, because "the president, the Senate, and the nation would endure a bitter fight no matter how good a person is nominated." Their decision to not hold a hearing is "constitutional," Grassley added, and will "help safeguard the integrity of the court. It's common sense. And, it's entirely American."

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