Bennet yes, Gardner no on hearing Obama’s Supreme Court pick

As expected, Colorado’s U.S. senators disagree on whether the Senate should consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

Republican Cory Gardner has backed Senate GOP majority leaders who want the next president to choose a replacement for the late Antonin Scalia.

Gardner repeated his stand in a statement issued Wednesday.

Democrat Michael Bennet says it’s the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to consider Garland now.

Republicans want to deny Obama the chance to change the court’s ideological balance before he leaves office next January.

Garland is chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

As a federal prosecutor, he led the investigation into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and supervised the prosecutions of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in Denver.