Although the White House can not say why the President will be “unavailable to attend” Justice Antonin Scalia’s funeral, Obama will skip the service on Saturday and instead visit the Justice briefly as he lies in state at the Supreme Court.
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Thankfully, a few GOP senators seem to be rethinking the idea that a Senate vote on a Supreme Court nominee is inconceivable this year. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), as well as McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
President Obama on Tuesday said he will put forward a nomination, as allowed by the constitution.
Just hours after Scalia’s death Saturday, McConnell, R-Ky., said Obama should leave the nomination for whoever is elected president in November.
Granted, there is no science to predicting how a Supreme Court nominee will rule once on the bench, and Republicans will probably end up blocking Obama’s nominee no matter who that person is.
Obama also spoke with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Senator Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Earnest said.
President Obama pledges to nominate “a very qualified candidate in due time“, reminding The People, “Your job doesn’t stop until you’re voted out”.
In the fight over filling the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans clearly have the more hard task, at least when it comes to rhetoric and public relations. With a half-dozen major cases before the Court this term, the President has said that he will fulfill his Constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor. “Politicians, and the Republicans more notably, are willing to say anything and do anything, to go as far out as they possibly can go to score political points”.
In this edition of River to River, host Emily Woodbury talks with Schmidt and Andersen about the nomination process and how it may impact the ongoing presidential nominating process.
Scalia’s time on the court-the appointee of President Ronald Reagan served almost 30 years-was long, and now it has ended.
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The unusual items became symbols of the ObamaCare debate following colorful comments from Scalia, who was the court’s leading conservative.
