Obama said Tuesday that he will nominate a well-qualified candidate and expects the Senate to hold hearings and vote on the nominee. For all intents and purposes, she’s running for Obama’s third term.
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After I did my job, yes…
Obama spoke as he closed a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders at Sunnylands, a Southern California desert retreat.
But the president’s attention was divided.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the White House to hold off on choosing a replacement for Scalia until after a new president is elected.
The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama has started preliminary discussions about a nominee. “I’m amused when I hear people who claim to be strict interpreters of the Constitution suddenly reading into it a whole series of provisions that are not there”, Obama said.
Q: So what is the chance of a filibuster on a nominee by Obama? “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president”.
Asked whether that undercuts his position, Obama said, “How judicial nominations have evolved over time is not historically the fault of any single party”. Years of bickering have left the public accustomed to a situation where “everything is blocked” – even when there’s no ideological or substantive disagreement, he said.
A leading Supreme Court analyst said U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is the”most likely candidate” to be chosen by the Obama. In the past, lawmakers have sometimes informally agreed to stop holding hearings on lower court nominations during campaign season.
Robert Sedler is a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University Law School.
“I would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decisions” about confirmation hearings, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said, according to Radio Iowa.
McConnell has shown no signs of shifting his opposition, and several lawmakers facing heated elections have backed him up.
“I think the Republicans have been outrageous on this issue”.
One possible contender is Sri Srinivasan, who Republican senators supported in 2013 when he was confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Republicans, led by McConnell and including vulnerable GOP senators up for re-election this year, said Election Day in November will give voters a say in who replaces Scalia.
Obama on Tuesday would not tip his hand – much. Although he was handed his patoot by SCOTUS for his National Labor Relations Board recess appointments, the ruling could be read to cover only a limited number of appointments.
Obama not only failed to build a bipartisan consensus, he changed the law dozens of times without the consent and authority from Congress to do so.
Reid cited the election-year confirmation of Justice Anthony Kennedy as proof that presidents have the constitutional power to pick judges during the last year of their administrations.
The body of Justice Antonin Scalia will lie in repose Friday at the Supreme Court, followed by a funeral service Saturday at the nation’s largest Catholic church. High court terms begin in October, and the 80 or so cases argued in the course of a term typically are decided by early summer. Democrats saw that allowing Bork to replace the retiring moderate Justice Lewis F. Powell would tip the Court rightward.
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If the Senate race in Nevada were not consequential enough already, add the future makeup of the Supreme Court to the list of issues at stake.
