Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say there will be no hearing for President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
Advertisement
The numbers from Pew found Democrats feel more strongly in favor (79 percent) of the Senate acting on an Obama nominee than Republicans are against it (66 percent).
Within hours of the news on February 13 of Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisted that the next president should be the one to fill the seat, leaving a possible 4-4 split on cases over the next eleven months. That’s a very different point in an election year than we are in today, when the vacancy opened so very early on in the presidential nominating contests and with the risk of a Supreme Court seat remaining open for more than a year, severely disrupting two consecutive terms.
Chuck Schumer, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, predicted that the Republican position would crumble as voters put pressure on vulnerable Republican Senate incumbents seeking re-election to consider Obama’s nominee. Rather than affording his family an appropriate time to mourn his death and celebrate his life, the Senate leader issued a political statement challenging the president’s constitutional right to appoint a replacement.
Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden found himself caught in the partisan fight over Scalia’s successor.
Not according to a 1992 speech by then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.), who maintained that the president should “not name a nominee until after the November election is completed”.
Nothing. Republicans controlling the Senate – which must confirm any Obama appointee before the individual is seated on the court – say they won’t schedule a vote or even hold hearings on whomever Obama may name.
“I think the obligation of the Senate is to carefully consider any nominee whom the president submits”, Collins said, in a press briefing, the Hill said.
CRAWFORD: With President Obama poised to move the Court to a liberal majority, Republicans are vowing to block any nominee. But for Republicans hoping to hold onto the Senate-which would require the reelection of Republican senators in states such as New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and IL, as well as OH and Pennsylvania-this is a first indication that obstructing a vote on the president’s Supreme Court pick may take a political toll.
Collins said it’s not unusual to have tension over judicial nominees.
Further hardening Democrats’ battle lines over a high-stakes Supreme Court vacancy, Sen.
GOP members of the committee met with McConnell in a closed-door session and emerged with a simple message: “No hearing, no vote”, said Sen.
Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to students Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington, said, “There’s nothing in the Constitution that specifies the size of the Supreme Court”.
Advertisement
Senate Democrats have launched a furious attack on Republicans for refusing a hearing or vote on whoever Barack Obama nominates to the supreme court.
