President Obama, members of Congress and others are expected to pay their respects ahead of Saturday’s funeral.
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“Some people actually want to use the funeral of the Supreme Court justice as some sort of political cudgel”, he said, adding that the president doesn’t think such “rancor” and “partisanship” is appropriate. One of his sons, the Rev. Paul Scalia, delivered brief remarks along with the Lord’s Prayer. During the visit, the first couple also viewed a portrait of the high court justice, painted in 2007, that was displayed nearby.
The Obamas arrived at the Great Hall in the Supreme Court Friday afternoon and stayed for several minutes.
Scalia’s wife, nine children and most of his 28 grandchildren, who called him “Pop”, were there, too.
Nearly 100 of Scalia’s former law clerks attended, and they will take turns standing watch over the casket throughout the day, along with an honor guard. Earnest said those calls were a sign that Obama takes seriously the Senate’s constitutional role of giving advice and consent to the president’s judicial nominees. ‘I can tick instance after instance over the last seven years where Republicans have purposely tried to diminish the president’s authority, ‘ Mr. Butterfield said.
Scalia’s rulings generally satisfied conservatives.
The extended Scalia family gathered around the widow inside the court.
“As he left Martha Lou’s Kitchen, a soul food institution here on Wednesday, Edward Gadsden expressed irritation about the Republican determination to block President Obama from selecting Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court”.
Ed Whelan, a former Scalia law clerk who now heads the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told Politico that Obama made the correct choice. His death gives Obama a chance to replace the conservative stalwart with a more liberal successor who could tilt the ideological balance of the court for decades to come.
As the week wound down, Obama himself phoned leaders in the Senate – Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Leader Harry Reid, along with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens.
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Senator Mitchell rejected the Republican argument: “I think it’s kind of an insult to the millions of Americans who voted for President Obama to somehow claim that his term ends after three years, or doesn’t continue into this last year”. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.
