“And to hobble the court over this, you know, just really seems inappropriate”.
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Many Republicans, including presidential hopefuls and current Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have already announced their intentions not to act on any nominee the president sends them. “I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations”. I don’t think the American people want a court that will mandate unlimited abortion on demand, partial birth abortion with taxpayer funding and no parental notification.
“One more justice, and the court will hold not a single human being has any right under the Second Amendment”, Cruz said in SC in mid-January. Abortion opponents had been hoping to have them affirmed by the Supreme Court, with the help of a great ally in Justice Scalia.
“It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat”, said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. “The Senate has a responsibility to fill vacancies as soon as possible”.
Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby said Saturday he will “adamantly oppose” any effort by Obama to fill the seat.
He was the lone dissenting voice in the court’s 1996 ruling that it was unconstitutional for the state of Virginia to bar women from enrolling at the Virginia Military Institute.
Joe Sestak, a former congressman and retired Navy admiral, also called on Toomey to “fulfill his duty and vow to quickly consider a Supreme Court nominee, and stand with Pennsyvlanians, not with partisan obstructionism”. It is only February. He had some difficulties finding the right nominee to replace Lewis Powell, who retired in 1987; Robert Bork was rejected by the Senate for his staunchly conservative views and Douglas Ginsberg withdrew his name after admitting that he smoked marijuana with students while he was a law professor at Harvard. “If that new president is not a member of my party, I will take the same objective, non-partisan approach to that nominee as I have always done”.
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The prospect of a tie suggests that Justice Anthony Kennedy will join the court’s four liberal justices to uphold the arrangement, Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein said. Unfortunately the presidential debates have been more theater and less substance about the real issues surrounding the Supreme Court. The election of the next President has now taken on even greater importance. So the death of Justice Scalia has the potential to turn this union case – and by extension the powerful union politics in California – completely upside down.
