First, the strategy of this is dubious. If you believe this election is about winning over moderate voters, sure, appointing Garland and having the GOP react like angry school-kids is great politics. Frankly, the GOP Presidential mess should already help us there. They are going to nominate Trump or Cruz for President, and moderates will flock to Hillary Clinton in the end. In other words, I don't think this is the group of voters we have to use this pick to motivate. The one way Clinton could lose is if there are simply too many excited Republicans going out to vote for an arch-conservative nominee. In other words, enthusiasm. Democrats need to motivate their base groups- Hispanics, African-Americans, the young, LGBT voters- all of which may find they like Garland, but none of which feel particularly excited by him. If President Obama had picked a minority candidate for the bench, and the GOP had behaved the way it is now (which was inevitable no matter who he picked), it would have motivated a group within our base to get out and vote against Republicans this Fall. He could have produced the same effect, embarrassing the GOP for voting against a qualified candidate they would normally accept, and still motivated our base, had he picked U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She would have been a perfect strategic pick. Garland doesn't do much for that.
With that said, I would like to see Judge Garland confirmed. I think he'd be a great Supreme Court Justice. Is he the most liberal? No. Is he providing much in diversity? No. Are there some issues, especially in criminal justice, where Judge Garland is to the right of the liberal justices? Yes. Merrick Garland on the whole is solidly to the left of the judge he is replacing, Antonin Scalia, even with all of these issues. Judge Garland is by no means a conservative-leaning judge. He's qualified for the seat too- he's the Chief Justice of the DC Circuit Court of Appeal. It could be argued on pure qualification that Judge Garland is the most qualified judge in the country. He's currently leading a left-leaning court, one that regularly deals with constitutional matters, governing legal issues, and the Supreme Court. If you remove ideology, Judge Garland is a perfect pick for the court. He's smart, hard-working, and leads the #2 court in the land. If you add back in ideology, he takes the court a solid step to the left, and probably reverses decisions like Citizens United. Either way, he's a good pick.
Since diversity plays a part in both of my main opinions on Judge Garland, it's worth us discussing. I believe in diversity in government, I just don't believe in forced diversity. If you are being honest about picking the most qualified people for any government position, you would not end up with the traditional government of white men that we have had. You would have a government that is half women. You would have a government that has African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and LGBT citizens who are better prepared to govern than their white, male counterparts. Obviously, this has not historically happened, though one could argue the Clinton and Obama Administrations both furthered the cause of increased diversity. They haven't done so by appointing less qualified, diversity candidates though. Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Julian Castro, and other non-"white guy" cabinet members were well qualified for their jobs. Both of his Supreme Court nominees were well qualified. Judge Garland clearly doesn't add diversity to the bench. He's also supremely qualified for the job. Knocking his nomination down for not adding to diversity basically defeats the argument for why we need diversity.
So, in conclusion, I don't think this is a great strategic move, but I think it's a good nomination. I hope Judge Garland does get to serve. I think he'd be a solid judge. I hope the Senate does break down after Hillary Clinton becomes President-Elect, and they confirm him.
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