Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland

About

Merrick Garland is an American attorney and jurist serving as the 86th United States attorney general since March 2021. He served as a circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021.

A native of the Chicago area, Garland attended Harvard University for his undergraduate and legal education. After serving as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., he practiced corporate litigation at Arnold & Porter and worked as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice, where he played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Garland to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in March 2016 to fill the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia. However, the Republican Senate majority refused to hold a hearing or vote on his nomination. The rare refusal of a Senate majority to consider the nomination was highly controversial. Garland's nomination lasted 293 days (the longest to date by far), and it expired on January 3, 2017, at the end of the 114th Congress. Eventually, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated and appointed Neil Gorsuch to the vacant seat. In March 2021, President Joe Biden appointed Garland as Attorney General.

Background

Merrick Garland was born on November 13, 1952, in Chicago. He grew up in the northern Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood. His mother Shirley Garlandwas a director of volunteer services at Chicago's Council for Jewish Elderly (now called CJE SeniorLife). His father, Cyril Garland, headed Garland Advertising, a small business run out of the family home. Garland was raised in Conservative Judaism, the family name having been changed from Garfinkel several generations prior. His grandparents left the Pale of Settlement within the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century, fleeing antisemitic pogroms and seeking a better life for their children in the United States.He is a second cousin of six-term Iowa Governor Terry Branstad.

Garland attended Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois, where he was president of the student council, acted in theatrical productions, and was a member of the debate team. He graduated in 1970 as the class valedictorian. Garland was also a Presidential Scholar and National Merit Scholar.

After high school, Garland went to Harvard University, where he majored in social studies. He initially wanted to become a physician, but quickly decided to become a lawyer instead. Garland allied himself with his future boss, Jamie Gorelick, when he was elected the only freshman member of a campus-wide committee on which Gorelick also served. During his college summers Garland volunteered as a speechwriter to Congressman Abner Mikva. After President Jimmy Carter appointed Mikva to the D.C. Circuit, Mikva would rely on Garland when selecting clerks. At Harvard, Garland wrote news articles and theater reviews for the Harvard Crimson and worked as a Quincy House tutor.Garland wrote his 235-page honors thesis on industrial mergers in Britain in the 1960s.Garland graduated from Harvard in 1974 as class valedictorian with an A.B. summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Garland then attended Harvard Law School. During law school, Garland was a member of the Harvard Law Review. He ran for the presidency of the Law Review during his third year, but lost to Susan Estrich, and served as an articles editor instead. As an articles editor, Garland assigned himself to edit a submission by U.S. Supreme Court justice William Brennan on the topic of the role of state constitutions in safeguarding individual rights. This correspondence with Brennan later contributed to his winning a clerkship with the justice. Garland graduated from Harvard Law in 1977 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.

Mikva connection

Mikva proteges

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, author Sanford Horwitt, Federal Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland at book party for Horwitt's book, "Conversations with Abner Mikva."

In a new book about Abner Mikva, we learn what the Illinois liberal icon considered his biggest regret in a career that included posts in all three branches of government.

In the 1970s, Mikva made a pragmatic decision that turned out to be crucial in winning another congressional term. Years later, he realized it was a major misstep in his otherwise long life of impressive public service.

Mikva reflects on how he handled the political pressure when a small group of neo-Nazis wanted to march in Skokie in a new book, “Conversations with Abner Mikva: Final Reflections on Chicago Politics, Democracy’s Future and a Life of Public Service” by Sanford Horwitt.

Horwitt, Mikva’s former congressional press secretary and speechwriter, based the book on a series of monthly conversations he had with Mikva in the three years before he died, some at Valois Cafeteria, at 1518 E. 53rd St. in Hyde Park; others at The Bagel Restaurant, 3107 N. Broadway.

Mikva’s was a rare career touching the three branches of government –– from the Illinois House of Representatives, to Congress, to chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to White House counsel under former President Bill Clinton.

Mikva was an inspiration and a mentor to generations of Democrats in Illinois and Washington.

Some were at a recent book party in Washington for Horwitt’s book at the home of Judy Woodruff, the PBS NewsHour anchor, and her husband, Al Hunt, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Among those present were two Mikva protégés, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a onetime Mikva law clerk who followed him to the Clinton White House, and federal Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, raised in Lincolnwood and in his youth, a Mikva campaign volunteer. Former President Barack Obama tapped Garland for the Supreme Court; GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider the nomination, arguing that the next president should make the appointment.

Mikva’s congressional stints were in two distinct districts –– one anchored in Democratic Hyde Park, the other in what in the 1970s was GOP-leaning turf in the northern suburbs, which included the Democratic stronghold of Skokie.

Skokie then had a substantial Jewish population, including a significant number of Holocaust survivors. Skokie also had the most Mikva voters in his district.

As Horwitt writes, by 1977, “the battle lines were drawn: either you were on the side of the Nazis who claimed a First Amendment right to demonstrate in their Nazi uniforms or you were on the side of the Holocaust survivors.”

In the book, Horwitt recalled that he was horrified when Mikva told him in the midst of the controversy that he was going to write an article on “Why the Nazis should not march in Skokie,” since Mikva was a prominent First Amendment defender.

Mikva decades later told Horwitt, “I’ve thought about this often. I feel worse about the way I carried out my job in that instance than anything else that happened in fifty years of public life.”

He went on to tell Horwitt that he knew the “right position” was to let the Nazis demonstrate in Skokie, as painful as it would be. “But the political pressure was so heavy, not just political pressure in the sense of votes, but feeling like I wasn’t representing my constituency.”

The Nazis never demonstrated in Skokie. In November 1978, Mikva won re-election as Horwitt notes, “again by less than one percent. He won Skokie with 71 percent of the vote.”

Chicago funeral

He may have started out as the original "nobody nobody sent," but Abner Mikva was sent off in grand style Monday at a memorial service where he was feted by a crowd of political heavyweights including a Supreme Court justice and the president of the United States.

Elena Kagan and Barack Obama were two of the big shots who told a packed crowd at the Spertus Institute's Feinberg Theater that he helped send them on their way in public life.

And Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was one of several speakers so moved by the memory of Mikva's legendary kindness and decency that he choked up on stage.

The event came a month after Mikva — a uniquely beloved former congressman, federal appellate court judge and White House counsel — died at the age of 90. Best-known for his classic Chicago story of being turned away as an idealistic young man from volunteering at the 8th Ward office of the Democratic Party in 1948 by a stogie-wielding committeeman who informed him "we don't want nobody nobody sent," he was fondly remembered Monday for his wisdom, generosity and disarming wit.

"He was a real mensch," said Garland, who volunteered for one of Mikva's congressional races in the 1970s and later followed him in becoming chief judge of the federal appellate circuit in Washington.

Garland recalled with embarrassment how, instructed by Mikva to drive advice columnist Margo Howard — the daughter of the famous Ann Landers — from downtown to a campaign event in Skokie, he had "got lost" and "run out of gas" after leaving the A/C running in his dad's

"By the time we arrived the event was over," said Garland, who added that he feared being fired over the mistake. Instead, with "a big smile" Mikva "put his arm around my shoulders and said 'Next time, start earlier and be sure you have a full tank of gas.' "

Garland teared up as he recalled how, many years later, Mikva came to shiva for Garland's father's in 2000 and held Garland's mother's hand "for almost half an hour."

"She never forgot that kindness," he said. "And nor did I."

In a lighter moment, former presidential adviser David Axelrod recalled when Mikva was informed of the death of notoriously corrupt former Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell and asked whether he was surprised that Powell had been found with $800,000 in cash in shoeboxes in his hotel room. Mikva shot back, "only that the amount was so small."

Kagan, who was a law clerk for Mikva and got four of her first five adult jobs thanks to his help, may owe him even more. Making an apparent reference to the speech given at the Democratic National Convention by the father of fallen Muslim Army officer Humayun Khan, she said that until recently, Mikva was the only person she knew who carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket.

Pushing Garland

In 2016, just before he died Abner Mikva was active in pushing for the U.S. Senate to consider the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Garland was born in Chicago, and went to high school at Niles West in Skokie.

When he was 17, Garland volunteered for retired Judge Abner Mikva’s first congressional campaign.

Mikva says they’ve kept in touch ever since.

“He was a brilliant law student at Harvard, he’s been brilliant in everything he’s done. And his opinions are masterpieces,” Mikva said.

Garland ended up succeeding Mikva on the Washington D.C. federal appeals court.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has pledged not to give Garland a nomination hearing.

Despite the political controversy, Mikva says he believes Garland stands a “reasonable chance” of being confirmed.

April 2016 Democracy Alliance Santa Monica meeting

April 2016 Some of the biggest donors on the left huddled behind closed doors with liberal politicians including Nancy Pelosi to strategize about electing Democrats and confirming Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, but they also discussed ways to use Hollywood to advance their causes.

The occasion was the annual spring investment conference of the Democracy Alliance, which officially kicks off at the tony Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica, California.

The agenda also showed a particular focus on the California liberal donor community’s efforts to prepare for an impending upheaval in their state.

“As we approach the end of the Senator Boxer, Governor Brown, and Democratic Party Chair Burton era of California politics, a number of progressive policy, labor, and donor leaders have been strategizing together on how to win targeted candidate and initiative elections in 2016 and beyond, as well as policy battles in Sacramento,” read the description of a Saturday session called the California Donor Summit. It is sponsored by some of the biggest names in California progressive donor circles, including San Francisco real estate developer Wayne Jordan and his wife Quinn Delaney, Cookie Parker and Democracy Alliance board member Susan Sandler and her husband Steve Phillips.