FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MARCH 21, 2016

CONTACT: Barb Grimaldi, Public Interest Law Center, 267-546-1304, bgrimaldi@pubintlaw.org

Philadelphia, Pa. – Today more than 100  Pennsylvania practicing lawyers, law professors and members of the business community joined the national push for the Senate to take action on the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court with a letter to Senators Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell.

The letter reads in part: “Now that the President has exercised his Constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor to the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, we encourage the Senate to fulfill its constitutional role and grant the nominee fair consideration and a full Senate floor vote.”

Today’s letter attaches and refers to a March 9 letter signed by more than 250 members of the corporate legal and business community across the country including partners at major law firms, former and current general counsels and other practitioners, many of whom regularly appear before federal district courts, the Circuit Courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.  That letter, however, only includes two Pennsylvania signatories.

“Lawyers and law professors from Pennsylvania are pleased to add our voices to this important conversation,” said Dean JoAnne Epps of Temple University Beasley School of Law. “The impact of the Senate not taking action to review President Obama’s nominee would be profound and detrimental to our judicial system.”

“The American people expect that the Legislative branch will do its job so that the Judicial branch can do its own. There is important business before the Supreme Court this term and Congress has plenty of time to fulfill its responsibility to give the President’s nominee a fair hearing and timely vote,” said Jennifer Clarke, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center.

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