His death, however, holds a lot more significance than just the facts that he was one of the most well respected, conservative justices in the court. Nominating judges to the nation’s highest court is traditionally the president’s responsibility, but in an unprecedented move Senate Majority Speaker Mitch McConnell has said Republicans won’t consider any of Obama’s picks because he has less than a year left in office. They mostly favor the appointment of a Scalia clone, if one were available, and that would happen only if the GOP candidate were to win the White House.
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“Senator Ayotte believes that the people of New Hampshire deserve an opportunity to weigh in on the next Supreme Court nominee and that the confirmation process should wait until after the American people have spoken in the presidential election”, said Ayotte spokesman Lauren Zelt.
That refusal from Senate Republicans is the target of a new video from progressive organization MoveOn.org Civic Action, using the words of the late President Ronald Reagan to condemn the latest round of Obama-era Republican obstructionism. The express language of the Constitution states that the sitting president selects the candidate; the sitting Senate then conducts a hearing to provide advice and consent. But Alito did note that the remaining eight justices don’t get a say in deciding joins them on the bench.
“There’s not a lot of vigor when they defend the position”, Obama pointed out, calling Republicans’ demands for steadfast and unprecedented obstruction “sheepish”.
“It’s not in the text of the Constitution”, Obama said.
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Obama said he also wants a nominee who knows life experiences outside the courtroom can inform a legal perspective. President Obama expresses that he seeks a judge who has a “keen understanding that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook”. Without offering any specifics on his shortlist of candidates, Obama wrote that his pick will “recognizes the limits of the judiciary’s role”, without an ideological agenda.
