Farenthold Statement on President Obama’s Supreme Court Nomination of Judge Garland
I released the following statement after President Obama announced his intent to nominate Judge Merrick Garland to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
While the President has every right to make a nomination to fill the seat on the Supreme Court, the Senate also has every right to confirm or not confirm that nominee. I hope the Senate takes a strong stand against a nominee that has shown he is no friend to the Constitution and no friend to the right to keep and bear arms.
The last time a Supreme Court nominee was confirmed in a presidential election year (with the Senate and White House controlled by different parties) was in 1880.
More information on Garland’s anti-Second Amendment stance:
Garland voted to rehear Parker v. District of Columbia (a precursor to the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller), suggesting he wished to reconsider and alter the outcome of the DC Circuit Case which held DC’s handgun ban unconstitutional.
Although the D.C. Circuit upheld the District Court’s ruling against the ban, Garland voted, as part of a request to the court as a whole, for en banc review (a request for the D.C. Circuit to reconsider their own ruling). Garland’s position lost and the request was denied. The Supreme Court went on to rule that the ban was unconstitutional.
Additionally, in NRA v. Reno, Garland ruled in favor of government retention, for six months, of background check information that is collected when people legally purchase guns, a position the NRA vehemently rejected. The NRA argued that the information was required to be immediately destroyed under the Brady Act.