A New Mexico attorney’s effort to force the U.S. Senate to vote on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland failed again Wednesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
According to the order, Santa Fe lawyer Steven S. Michel could not convince the court that he was personally harmed by Senate deferral on the nomination of Garland.
Garland was nominated by Obama to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia in March.
Michel, however, claimed that, as a New Mexico voter who had voted for his state’s two senators, his own vote was lessened by Republicans in the upper chamber who would not allow any member to vote on Garland.
However, the Circuit Court panel said, countered his claim was “wholly abstract and widely dispersed,” and that would not satisfy the demands of the Constitution’s Article III limiting federal court jurisdiction.
Michel now has two longer shot options for success. He could either ask for the full D.C. Circuit for an order to force the vote or try to convince the Supreme Court to accept his case.