Evanston Aldermen Ask Senate to Act on Supreme Court Nominee

EVANSTON, IL - The United States Senate has a “constitutional duty” to schedule a hearing on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court of the United States nominee Merrick Garland and should hold a confirmation vote on the senate floor.

That’s according to a resolution passed unanimously Monday by the City Council in Evanston, a neighboring community of Garland’s home town of Lincolnwood.

The Council expressed the opinion that the Senate should be “working on behalf of the people of the United States to ensure that the vacancy on the Supreme Court is filled without undue and unnecessary delay so that the Supreme Court can effectively serve its essential constitutional function as the final arbiter of the law.”

MORE ON PATCH: Obama Nominates Lincolnwood Native Merrick Garland to U.S. Supreme Court

Senate Republicans have in bulk refused to meet with Garland, a Niles West High School grad and longtime judge who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has stated publically that the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February should not be filled by Obama, since 2016 is a Presidential Election year and Obama will be out of office in January 2017.

Aldermen in Evanston addressed that in the resolution, pointing out that Scalia’s death occurred 269 days before the election and that since 1975 the average number of days from nomination to a confirmation vote for a Supreme Court nominee has been 70 days.

If the Senate does not act in holding a hearing or vote, the resolution states that will force the nation’s highest court to function with only eight justices and create “numerous instances in which the Court is evenly divided on the outcome of a case, preventing the Court from resolving conflicting interpretations of the Constitution among different regions of the Nation and thereby undermining the Supreme Court’s role as the final arbiter of the law.”

The creation of the resolution calling for the Senate to act was initiated by Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl, who made mention of the possibility during a City Council meeting held earlier in the month.

Obama announced his nomination of Garland on March 16 and has since traveled to Chicago to discuss the nominee at the University of Chicago.