1st LD Writethru: Obama nominates new Supreme Court justice amid partisan fight

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland as the country's 113th Supreme Court justice, setting off a showdown with Senate Republicans who had vowed to block any nomination in the last year of Obama's presidency.

In a clear move to pressure defiant Republicans to go back on their pledge to block any of his pick, Obama chose Garland, a centrist and highly regarded appeals court judge, who "has earned a track record of building consensus," said Obama here at the White House.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Garland would replace Antonin Scalia, a former lynchpin of a conservative majority of the Supreme Court who died last month.

However, the nomination was expected to face a hostile Senate, where Republican leaders had vowed not to meet with any Obama nominee, hold hearings or allow a confirmation vote.

Republicans insisted that a new nomination should wait till after the 2016 election, in hopes that a Republican president would choose Scalia's conservative successor.

With the absence of Scalia, the eight remaining justices are evenly divided, a fact which could change the ruling of contentious issues, including Obama's Clean Power Plan and executive actions on immigration, in the coming months.

The last time a major shift in the country's highest court's makeup occurred was in 1991 when former U.S. President George H. W. Bush nominated conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to replace liberal justice Thurgood Marshall. Since then, a five-conservative majority in the the Supreme Court has held steady. Endite