By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) Illinois U.S. Senator Mark Kirk is taking credit for the fact that more than a dozen Republican Senators are planning to meet with President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.
Kirk appeared Wednesday morning on “The Big John Howell Show” on WLS, the same program where last month he encouraged Republicans to “man up”, and vote on Garland’s nomination.
Republican Senate leaders have vowed not to hold hearings on Garland, saying the next President, not President Barack Obama, should fill the vacancy of the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
In his Wednesday appearance on WLS, Kirk told listeners that he started the ball rolling for various GOP Senators to meet with Garland.
“I understand that 18 of my fellow Republican Senators have said they will meet with Garland. So I was very much a leader there.”
Kirk also says he was impressed with Garland, who was born in Chicago and grew up in North Suburban Lincolnwood.
“I liked him, and I decided the reason why the meeting went so well is most of my difficulties with nominees is translating Chicagoland problems into their heads. In the case of Judge Garland I opened up the meeting with the bad news that we’d had 56 shootings in Chicagoland over the Easter weekend, and he immediately got why that was an important issue, coming from Lincolnwood.”
Kirk, who is a Chicago Cubs fan, also said he asked Garland which baseball team he supports.
“I even asked him ‘Cubs versus Sox’ and he said ‘Well Senator, my Dad did grow up on the South Side.’ I said, ‘You get special dispensation for that.’”
Kirk faces a tough re-election battle in November with Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth.
@ 2016 WLS-AM News
