White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama would draw on Biden’s perspective, noting the vice president had served as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and presided over confirmation hearings for past Supreme Court nominees.
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“I believe it is reasonable to give the American people a voice by allowing the next president to fill this lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court”, said Lamar Alexander, Tennessee’s senior USA senator, in a written statement. “And that’s what he’s going to do”.
A funeral service for family and friends will be held Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.at 11 a.m.
Thousands of mourners – from the president and members of Congress to former justices and tourists – will pay their respects Friday as the casket rests in the court’s Great Hall.
Mike Lee (R-UT), one of the Senate’s most notorious judicial appointee obstructionists, said Thursday that the Senate should not and will not confirm anyone President Obama picks to succeed Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. If the Democrats have a big enough win that the Senate goes Democratic, the new president can nominate Obama to the Supreme Court, to be confirmed by the Democratic Congress. The president and first lady Michelle Obama will pay their respects Friday afternoon at the Supreme Court where Scalia’s body lies in repose.
Obama is expected to look closely at a number of appeals court judges, including some who meet the benchmark that Biden laid out.
The formal tribute to the conservative jurist began with current and former law clerks lining the marble steps of the nation’s highest court as Supreme Court police officers carried the justice’s U.S. flag-draped coffin.
Members of the public walk past a Scalia portrait in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court. His death left the court with four conservatives and four liberals, meaning the next justice’s vote will likely change the court’s balance of power.
Besides all the conspiracy theories about Scalia’s death, I am baffled by the speed at which the Republican leadership started condemning Obama for even letting the word “nominate” enter his brain. “Who knows? Maybe we find a nomination that surprises us all”.
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Scalia is only the fourth Justice to die in office in the last 65 years, and there is no consistent pattern of presidential attendance.
