It has occurred to me that President Obama may actually quite wise in his nomination to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Constitution says nothing—absolutely nothing—about the Senate neither confirming nor denying a nominee. It does not say if the nomination “dies” with the next Senate, or ever, if the nominee is neither confirmed nor denied. Merrick Garland will be injured, so he will have reason to sue the Senate.
This is a problem for the GOP. They produced a list of potential nominees last week, but I think they will have to deal with President Obama’s nominee first, and clearly, they have a problem with that. I think Merrick Garland has precedence over future nominees, and there is a reason they do not want to bring his nomination to the floor of the Senate.
Furthermore, as the election gets closer, several Senators will be experiencing trouble in their districts. The Supreme Court is not going as the GOP planned—they are not “punting” all this year’s cases to the future. Instead, they’re deciding them, and they’re usually deciding them in our favor (even the Little Sisters of the Poor case, which the GOP is trying to claim is a victory is in actuality a failure).