The 2016 candidates for the US presidency on Saturday reacted with surprise and sadness to the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
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Scalia, the longest-serving justice on the high court, died in his sleep while on a hunting trip in Texas, local media reported.
“Justice Scalia was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, and was one of the most influential justices in history”.
“On behalf of the court and retired justices, I am saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away”, Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement, calling Scalia an “extraordinary individual and jurist”. Justice Scalia was one of the most consequential Americans in our history and a brilliant legal mind who served with only one objective: to interpret and defend the Constitution as written.
With Antonin Scalia’s death the Supreme Court is evenly split between Republican and Democrat appointees.
“What is less than zero?”
Quick-witted and loquacious, Scalia was among the most persistent, frequent and quotable interrogators of the lawyers who appeared before the court.
Indeed, the Republican majority in Congress could block any nomination during the final months of President Barack Obama’s tenure, delaying the process until the next president. But Scalia himself said he also liked writing dissents because that justice did not have to pull punches, as the author of the court’s majority opinion must sometimes do to ensure his opinion keeps its five votes.
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Ted Cruz took to Twitter to call Scalia “an American hero”. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president’s nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will be even more hard as the fight over Scalia’s replacement will emerge as a dominant theme of a wild presidential campaign.
