Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering conservative voice on the US Supreme Court, has died at the age of 79, setting up a showdown over his succession in the run-up to the US election.
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The leader of the senate, Republican Mitch McConnell said the vacancy on the Supreme Court should be filled by the next president.
The dinner came just hours after Scalia’s death was announced.
‘He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues, ‘ Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts said, as reported by the NY times.
Scalia was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. The Senate will have to decide whether to confirm or leave the seat on the Supreme Court vacant for more than a year. Harry Reid of Nevada, the chamber’s top Democrat said Obama should send the Senate a nominee “right away”.
“I plan to fulfill my constitutional obligation to appoint a successor – in due time”, Obama said, adding that he expected a fair hearing and a timely vote.
Many analysts weighing in on the political ramifications of Scalia’s unexpected death Saturday seemed to agree that it will be hard for Obama, who will now be tasked with choosing a nominee to replace Scalia, to get his appointment through a polarised Senate in an election year.
Scalia’s death leaves President Barack Obama weighing when to nominate a successor, a decision that immediately sparked a political struggle drawing in Congress and the presidential candidates. Now, with less than a year before the election, the Republican-led Senate could wage a huge battle with Pres. Obama over finding his replacement.
One of the first Republican candidates to respond to Scalia’s passing was Florida Sen.
(Donald Trump took a more unorthodox approach of saying at different parts in the debate Planned Parenthood does wonderful things outside of abortion, praising eminent domain and calling former President George W. Bush a liar over the Iraq war).
In the ensuring years, the conservative icon began to write a majority of the high court’s biggest cases, using his formidable powers of legal persuasion to bring less-conservative justices around to his view.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an influential conservative, was hailed Saturday as an important figure on America’s highest court as political leaders disagreed about when to fill his seat. If Republicans do indeed block Obama from appointing a new justice, it could significantly raise the stakes of the ongoing presidential race.
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Any possible nominee must first be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Barry was named to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, and she was part of a 2000 decision that New Jersey’s ban on late-term abortions was “unconstitutionally vague and “unduly burdened a woman’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion”. “The Supreme Court of the United States is too important to our democracy for it to be understaffed for partisan reasons”.
