U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is being remembered as a conservative justice known for his sharp dissents from the bench.
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Leaving Justice Scalia’s seat empty until there is a new president would mean that hard cases this term could come down to a tie, evenly split along ideological lines. The procession traveled more than three hours from the West Texas resort ranch where Scalia, 79, was found dead in his room Saturday morning. Ted Cruz of Texas, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, is on the committee, as is another Republican senator who dropped out of the running, Sen. Veteran Supreme Court lawyer Roy Englert says that “the vote of a deceased justice does not count”. “They are about our democracy”, Obama said.
The battle over the court will become a major factor in close Senate contests this fall that will determine control of the chamber.
Pennsylvania’s two senators – who will have a vote – both praised Scalia’s 30 year tenure on the court and the additional decades he spent as a judge and legal scholar.
“The President can and should send the Senate a nominee right away”, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said on Twitter. But as Obama made clear with the Sotomayor nomination, a nominee’s biography is also relevant in informing their decisions, especially when the law isn’t clear.
“That’s his perogative. But we don’t have to confirm him and we won’t”, said Marco Rubio, (R) Presidential Candidate.
The next justice could tilt the balance of the nation’s highest court, which was left with four conservatives and four liberals.
“There are other issues related to abortion where he’s erred more on the side of being permissive rather than protective of the unborn child”, she said.
This page has long argued that presidents have wide latitude in choosing Supreme Court justices.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says President Obama will not even get a vote for someone he wants to nominate. Kirk released a statement saying “the political fight erupting about prospective nominees to fill the vacancy is unseemly, let us take the time to honor his life, before the inevitable debate erupts”.
Here, conservatives will have a strong retort: Not only was Anthony Kennedy nominated in 1987 – not 1988 – but the only reason he was nominated at all was because Democrats had rejected the nomination of Robert Bork a year earlier. This photo shows the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, as the sun rises Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. A short list of possible replacements includes two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Sri Srinivasan and Patricia Ann Millet.
“The Senate right now is in recess”, Evans said.
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These competing interpretations of justice will no doubt make an already agitated election year even more frenzied.
