Grassley and other Senate leaders to meet with Obama

WASHINGTON - Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and other Senate leaders will meet Tuesday with President Barack Obama to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, but there were no signs their opposing stances were easing - and instead may be growing more complicated.

The White House has contacted every member of the Grassley's Senate Judiciary Committee, both Republicans and Democrats, to discuss efforts to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Feb. 13.

An Obama appointee could pivot the Supreme Court to the left for the first time in decades.

But his eventual nominee will fall of deaf ears in the Senate, with Grassley and other key GOP senators saying they won't meet with anyone the Democratic president chooses, much less hold confirmation hearings.

On Thursday, a Republican governor that the Washington Post had reported to be under consideration for the position - Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval - announced he was withdrawing from consideration.

'The notion of being considered for a seat on the highest court in the land is beyond humbling and I am incredibly grateful to have been mentioned,” he said.

The possibility that Obama was even considering Sandoval, 52, a Mexican-American who had been appointed to a federal judgeship by Republican George W. Bush, allowed the president to appear as if he was leaning to a moderate.

As governor, Sandoval has taken a traditional Republican stance in support of gun rights but offered more moderate views on social issues including abortion rights.

But even that possibility drew concern from some Democrats who cite the impasse as a political reason the president should put forth a liberal choice.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, under pressure by rival Bernie Sanders to move farther to the left, said Thursday she hoped Obama would nominate a 'true progressive.”

Grassley took to the Senate floor Thursday to reiterate his position that a new justice should be appointed only by a new president - not by one who has less than a year left in office.

'It's the principle, not the person that matters,” he said.

Grassley dismissed a blistering critique of him a day earlier in a floor speech by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who said Grassley's judiciary panel has been a failure due to his 'ineptness” as chairman of it.

'We all know that's just how some people act when they don't get their way.” Grassley said. 'But childish tantrums aren't appropriate for the Senate.”

Grassley repeated his assertion that the Senate won't move forward while 'the American people decide” which direction to take the federal government.

'Do the American people want to elect a president who will nominate a justice in the mold of Scalia to replace him? Or do they want to elect President Clinton or Sanders, who will nominate a justice who will move the court in a drastically more liberal direction?” he asked.

Democrats argue that the nation already decided that when voters twice elected Obama to serve as president until this January.

Grassley's position has given opponents in Iowa an issue to seize upon. He is up for election in November and so far has drawn three Democratic challengers.

Patty Judge, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and secretary of agriculture, told the Des Moines Register that she, too, is considering joining the fray.

'I don't like this doublespeak,” Judge told the Register. 'I don't like this deliberate obstruction of the process. I think Chuck Grassley owes us better. He's been with us a long time. Maybe he's been with us too long.”

But defeating the Republican would be quite a task, Running for a seventh term, Grassley is a household name in Iowa and polls show he has been popular with both Democrats and Republicans.