“This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president”.
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And after a long hiatus, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver took time on his late-night HBO program first to honor Scalia for being a “hugely significant justice” whose “death is the end of an era on the Supreme Court”, before addressing the elephant in the room: “The fact is, there is now a huge vacancy on the Supreme Court that needs to be filled-or, if you listened to the Republicans in the last 24 hours, not”, said Oliver. She also said the court’s makeup is crucial to preserving abortion rights and the legality of gay marriage nationwide. The defining figure in the U.S. presidential election is now Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice whose death shifts the focus of the race from political outsiders back to the very centre of American power.
The top elected official in the Texas county where Antonin Scalia was found dead says the U.S. Supreme Court justice died of natural causes.
Republicans have called for Scalia’s seat to remain open so that the next president, who would take office in January 2017, can nominate a replacement.
At that point, spokesman Eric Schultz says the White House expects the Senate to consider the nominee in keeping with its constitutional responsibilities.
But Obama struck a much different tone as a senator in 2006 during the confirmation hearings for Bush nominee Samuel Alito. The nomination will set up a battle with the Republican-controlled chamber, which must approve any nominee.
Justice Scalia’s death dominated the early portion of Saturday’s Republican debate in SC.
The Senate’s Republican leader, backed largely by his party’s White House candidates, essentially told a Democratic president in his final year in office not to bother asking lawmakers to confirm a nominee for the lifetime seat.
Both sides said history was on their side.
Another case in which there now seems little chance of finding a court majority to upset long-standing practice involves a conservative challenge to the way governments have drawn electoral districts for 50 years.
Republicans cited 80 years of tradition in which no Supreme Court nominees were approved in presidential election years. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for example, was confirmed in 1988. “The result in the lower court is the one that will control and there is no precedential value to the Supreme Court decision itself”.
“Well, that does not bode well because Mitch McConnell is actually pretty good at delaying things for people-whether it’s legislation, court appointments, or orgasms”, joked Oliver.
It’s safe to say whatever path he chooses is a high-stakes gamble, and we may not know who won until November. But I don’t think the American people want a court that will strip our religious liberties. “For nearly 30 years, Justice Antonin Scalia was a larger than life presence on the bench, a brilliant legal mind with an energetic style”, Mr Obama said in Rancho Mirage, California.
There was a lot of angst on right-leaning websites all day about whether President Obama would try to make a recess appointment this week since the Senate isn’t in session.
One possible contender to replace Scalia is an Indian-American appeals court judge, Sri Srinivasan, who has pro-business credentials and a stellar resume.
The basic idea is that this puts Republicans in a pickle.
State Rep. Scott Perry, R-Carroll Township, said it is the president’s constitutional prerogative to nominate justices to the court.
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He warned that a justice chosen by Sanders or his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, would mean the Second Amendment right to bear arms would be “written out” of the Constitution and abortion on demand would become the law of the land. “It would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that – empty talk”, she said.
