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Obama nominates Merrick Garland as US Supreme Court nominee

US President Barack Obama announces his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, March 16, 2016. (AFP photo)

US President Barack Obama has nominated Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, to replace the late Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the US Supreme Court.

Obama picked Garland on Wednesday, setting up a nearly unprecedented political fight with a Republican-controlled Senate that has vowed to block his nomination the country’s highest court.

Garland, 63, is the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He has served on that court since 1997.

"Today, I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick Brian Garland to join the Supreme Court," Obama said from the White House Rose Garden with Garland and Vice President Joe Biden standing alongside him.

“I’ve selected a nominee who is recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, honesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence,” Obama said.

Garland worked as a federal prosecutor in the US Justice Department, where he played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers.

He was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1977.

Garland was among three top candidates considered by Obama, including Sri Srinivasan, a judge in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; and Paul Watford, a judge in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California.

“This is the greatest honor of my life,” an emotional Garland said of the nomination, outside of his wife “agreeing to marry me 28 years ago.”

Garland was appointed to his current job by former President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning confirmation in a 76-23 Senate vote.

Last month's death of Justice Scalia, a staunch conservative, left the nine-member Supreme Court evenly divided between conservatives and liberals.

The Senate must confirm Garland's nomination, but the Republican majority has already ruled out considering it. They have said they will refuse to hold confirmation hearings or votes until the next president is sworn in next January.

But Obama thinks it is the Senate’s job to do so. "I simply ask Republicans in the Senate to give him a fair hearing and then an up or down vote,” he added. “I have fulfilled my constitutional duty. Now it’s time for the Senate to do theirs.”


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