President Barack Obama is challenging Republicans to live up to their avowed adherence for the Constitution and agree to vote on his nominee to replace late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “There is nothing in the constitution that says that in an election year, or in the final year of a president, that he shall not nominate someone for a vacancy (in) the supreme court”.
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Since Scalia’s unexpected death at a Texas ranch over the weekend, White House lawyers and advisers have been scrambling to identify potential replacements, while also devising a strategy to get a nominee confirmed. The highest court in the land.
Earnest did not give any further explanation on why the Obama’s would be skipping the funeral on Saturday.
“You know that’s in keeping what we heard all along, isn’t it?” Scalia’s casket will be on public view in the court’s Great Hall from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Friday, court officials said. “Since, each of them has said, ‘No, no, I’m on board”.
“While he complained about filibusters today, he joined filibusters while in the Senate”, said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) said he “would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decision” on whether to hold hearings on the president’s candidate.
This ironclad Constitutional rationale was further upheld by the Supreme Court Case “Mulberry v. The Bridges of Madison County”, whereby Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Jim Sheriff wrote “Presidents have no right to nominate a candidate if the opposition party has a good chance of winning”.
In an op-ed he wrote for JTA, Lewin recalled Scalia saying that during the seven years he was on the bench, when there were no Jewish justices on the Supreme Court, he considered himself the “guardian of Jewish heritage”.
Scalia’s courtroom chair has been draped in black, a Supreme Court tradition that dates to the 19th century.
Obama shed little light on whom he would choose or how the White House will try to finesse his choice through Congress.
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Reflecting on the broader political circumstances surrounding judicial nominees, the president added, “The fact that it’s that hard, that we’re even discussing this, is I think a measure of how, unfortunately, the venom and rancor in Washington has prevented us from getting basic work done”.
