Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) broke with his Senate Republican colleagues this week over whether a potential Supreme Court pick that President Obama puts forth should get a confirmation hearing.
“If the president nominates someone, which is his choice, I think that person would deserve a hearing if that person is not someone that is just obviously nominated for political purposes,” Coats said in an interview this week with the Journal Gazette.
{mosads}“My litmus test here is, since we’re replacing a Scalia for justice, that it ought to be somebody who has some adherence to the constitutional position of Justice Scalia to succeed in a Republican-held Congress.”
If there is a nominee this year, however, Coats said he would judge the pick by his or her “experience, the consistency, the record, the character, the judicial temperament and the position on the role of the Constitution as it applies to the Supreme Court.”