Former Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) stood by his 2016 decision to deny Merrick Garland a confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court justice, calling the potential for holding one at the time “a mistake for him and for the country.”
“I think so,” Blunt told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet The Press” when asked whether denying Garland a hearing was the right decision. Blunt argued the nomination was certain to fail.
“You could argue maybe we should have had a hearing. I think the way these hearings go, that would in many ways have been unfair to him, to put him through a hearing, to not be approved. I actually supported the majority leader’s decision at the time and still think in the politics of the country and the way these confirmations have happened, when you have the majority, and the president’s from the other party, there’s just a long history of not filling an election-year vacancy,” Blunt said.
According to the Brookings Institution, no such history exists; Supreme Court vacancies have been filled in election years by unified and divided governments.
Garland, now the U.S. attorney general, was nominated in March 2016 by President Obama to fill the vacancy of former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February of that year. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) denied him a confirmation hearing, citing the fact that it was an election year. Many criticized McConnell for then deciding to allow a confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by Trump in late September 2020, also an election year, and confirmed in late October.
Blunt said the lack of a hearing for Garland was a topic he heard more about than any other during his time in office.
“I will say in that year, I had more people at the airport and other places mention that single thing to me than I’ve ever had of any other thing. ‘Why don’t you give Garland a hearing?’ And I think I probably gave them the same answer I just gave you. ‘He won’t be confirmed. Having a hearing would be a mistake for him and for the country,’” Blunt said.
Regarding Barrett’s confirmation, Blunt argued voters would have taken their frustration out at the polls had Republicans not confirmed her when they had the chance.
“But I get it. Now, the difference, of course, the next year before a presidential change is that the president’s party has the majority. And that’s a different circumstance in a substantial way. If you don’t do that, let’s say you don’t do that, two months before the election, you’ve always got the sense that your side will just collapse on Election Day because they wonder why they sent you there if you could’ve done this and didn’t,” Blunt said. “And so that’s, that’s a big difference.”