Singling out Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pits old antagonists against each other again. | AP Photo Clinton to attack Grassley over Supreme Court blockade

Hillary Clinton on Monday will make an old foe the center of a new battle.

In a speech about the Supreme Court that Clinton is scheduled to deliver at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Democratic front-runner is expected to single out Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and challenge him to hold hearings on the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated last month by the death of Antonin Scalia, according to a campaign official.


Clinton has spoken out forcefully against the Republicans’ intransigence to hold nominating hearings, accusing the GOP of implicit racism in ignoring President Barack Obama's nominee, and noting that it has never taken the Senate more than 125 days to vote on a Supreme Court nomination.

But singling out Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in particular, pits old antagonists against each other again. Grassley has lead the Senate investigation into Clinton’s use of a personal email server at the State Department. And he has targeted Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin — he has obtained and circulated information from the State Department’s inspector general’s office about special employee status that Abedin obtained that allowed her to earn outside income as a private consultant at the same time she was a government employee.

In January, during an appearance on "Meet the Press," Clinton accused Grassley of attending a rally for Donald Trump in Iowa “for the simple reason to defeat me.”

On Monday, Clinton’s targeting of Grassley will be part of what a campaign aide described as a sustained effort to rip into Senate Republicans for failing to hold a hearing for a qualified court nominee.

Senate Democrats — who are making pressure for a hearing a centerpiece of their strategy to retake the Senate in November — lauded Clinton’s push from the campaign trail. And New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is leading the strategy, noted it also makes for good politics as Clinton tries to pivot to a general election while still fighting off a heated challenge from Bernie Sanders.

“It’s really smart of Hillary Clinton to put this issue front and center,” Schumer told POLITICO in a statement. “This issue unites Democrats and excites our base, while also appealing to independents and Republicans.”

Clinton has expressed support for Garland, a centrist appeals court judge, but has not said whether he fits her own criteria for a Supreme Court nominee — and whether she would commit to reappointing the 63-year-old if GOP Senate leaders succeed in blocking him for the next year. An aide told POLITICO the campaign is not entertaining the premise that Republicans could succeed in blocking Garland, as they have promised to do.

For months, Clinton has sought to elevate the stakes of the election by talking about the Supreme Court — and her speech on Monday is expected to mark her latest effort to explain the significance of its makeup.

“The next president could easily appoint more than one justice,” she wrote in an op-ed in the Boston Globe last January. “That makes this a make-or-break moment — for the court and our country.”