In story after story from the weekend, reports indicated that Garland would stand with liberal Democrats and side with unions and big government regulators and shift the court’s ideological composition sharply to the left.
Wall Street Journal: “Is Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a judicial progressive or a moderate? One way to judge is to look at his many opinions that defer to administrative agencies and that are a hallmark of his jurisprudence during his nearly 20 years on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In disputes over union power, his opinions nearly always benefit unions.”
Washington Times: “An analysis of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland’s judicial decisions on labor disputes has found that he nearly always sides with unions. The onlabor.org website, a blog run by Harvard Law School professors Benjamin Sachs and Jack Goldsmith, found that Judge Garland has written the majority opinion in 22 cases that considered appeals of National Labor Relations Board decisions between 1997 and this year. He sided with the NLRB in 18 of those decisions, agreeing with the agency’s interpretation that an employer committed unfair labor practices. In all of those cases, the blog said, ‘deference to the NLRB has had favorable consequences for labor and unions.’”
Associated Press: “Merrick Garland’s judicial record over nearly two decades indicates he would side more often than not with the Supreme Court’s liberal justices on a range of cases splitting the court along ideological lines….‘The bottom line is there’s little doubt that Merrick Garland will be with the new liberal majority in all the 5-4 cases that have gone the other way, ranging from campaign finance to voting rights and affirmative action,’ said Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the nonpartisan National Constitution Center.”
Washington Post: “Garland’s opinions urging more deference to federal regulatory agencies suggest that a Justice Garland would likely be more deferential to agency decisions than was the justice he would replace.”
Business Insider: “Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland’s best-known vote involved what’s considered one of the most important cases involving gun rights. Garland, the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, wanted the entire appeals court to reconsider a decision that had invalidated a handgun ban in Washington, DC.”