GOP chink: Republican says yes to SCOTUS hearing

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Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is the latest Republican to break with her party’s standstill on President Obama’s yet-to-be-announced pick for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, saying it’s an “obligation” for the Senate to hold hearings on the matter.

She said Obama’s nominee should be allowed a hearing – a deviation from party leaders who are pressing for a GOP-driven delay to the process, until a new president was elected.

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“I think the obligation of the Senate is to carefully consider any nominee whom the president submits,” Collins said, in a press briefing, the Hill said. “The best way to do that, in my judgement, is public hearings.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, is in charge of deciding whether those hearings go forth.

Collins said: “The kind of thorough process that a hearing allows is the best way to evaluate a nominee,” the Hill reported.

The Maine senator, who has supported some of Obama’s judiciary picks in the past, said the White House “has made no outreach whatsoever to me” and her announcement came by way of her own decision.

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Her comments came on the heels of another senator’s stated support for hearings. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wrote in a Chicago Sun-Times opinion piece he felt it his “duty” to vote on an Obama nominee after the individual was vetted via hearings.

The chances for an Obama pick to be given the hearing, however, is still unclear.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say, late Monday evening from the Senate floor, the Hill reported: “The chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I believe that it is today the American people who are best positioned to help make this important decision, rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most recent national electioon,” the Hill reported.

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