Whitehouse.gov petition: Immediately appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme CourtThe citizens of the United States have a right to the good faith consideration of each Supreme Court nominee. In an attempt to subvert the will of the people expressed in the reelection of President Barack Obama in 2012, the current Senate has willfully failed to make a timely assertion of their advise and consent right.
There is legal precedent in United States v. Olano which ruled that the holder of a constitutional right may waive the right by engaging in an excessive delay in exercising it.
Merrick Garland was nominated on March 16, 2016, more than 237 days ago, greatly exceeding the previous maximum consideration delay of 125 days. The Senate has waived its right. Please proceed with Judge Garland's appointment.
Needs 47,525 signatures by December 9 to get a response from the White House.
Update: Oh hey, here's another that already has more votes.
"Tags: doomed"
Indeed. We conservatives are quite happy about that.
Looks like they duplicated their efforts: Appoint Garland Now petition, with double the votes of the one you linked to. Bonus, it contains HTML escaped characters.
As much as I'd like this to happen, US v Olano is a yuge stretch as legal precedent. It clarified a prior ruling, Yakus v US, in which the court found:
Making a ruling about criminal and civil legal procedure apply to congressional procedure doesn't make a lot of sense.
I do think it is entirely valid to force the appointment in order to force Congress to take it to the Supreme Court, since forfeiture (by wasting time) of congressional rights and responsibilities is ill-defined and could use fixing.
Failing to make a Supreme Court case out of instances when the right wing failed to act in good faith has been a major failing of the left wing. Use the tools you've got.
Where's the petition to put a shih-tzu on the Supreme Court?
Jes' make the recess appointment while Congress is off plotting new ways to destroy the country...