Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a moderate Republican, took himself out of consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday as Senate Republicans dug in on their vow not to act on any nominee by President Barack Obama.
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Democrats want President Obama to nominate someone now, while Republicans say it should wait until the next president.
What happens if the Republicans “delay, delay, delay” until after a new president is elected and inaugurated (as they threaten)? Do the rest of us just have to sit back while the president wins some sad tug of war and the rest of us just lose out? But Nancy Pelosi, the top House of Representatives Democrat, called it a “good idea” for Obama to consider Republicans as well as Democrats.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said McConnell’s move was “outrageous”. “The Constitution doesn’t say that in an election year, ‘Delay, delay, delay, ‘” she said, raising her voice.
But that’s not what he said on the Senate floor about judicial nominees when a Republican was in the White House.
In spite of McConnell’s refusal to recognize the constitutional right of the president to choose a Supreme Court justice, he has given to the Democrats a major issue in the next election – and they will use it to probably unseat numerous 24 Republican senators running for re-election. President Obama must carry out the constitutional responsibilities and duties of his office by nominating a successor for Justice Scalia.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer discusses his book “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities” with NBC’s Pete Williams on February 25, 2016. They don’t need to say how he’s different; everyone knows what they mean. Within an hour of the announcement, then Senator Ted Kennedy, (D- MA) went on television to accuse Bork of envisioning an America “in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids”. He could simply be hoping to appoint a justice and fill the vacancy before leaving office, and he perceived Sandoval as a possible compromise candidate. Elections do have consequences. He praised Scalia’s wit and humor, and recalled their good-natured debates on their approaches to interpreting the Constitution: Breyer favors a more liberal interpretation, while Scalia was a Constitutional originalist.
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On Wednesday, President Obama blasted the politics of the Senate, and said the American people would have the chance to judge his nominee – something of a public relations campaign.
