GOP Senate v. Obama: Scalia Replacement





 

 

The response to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death veered off into politics almost immediately.

The Feb. 13 death of Scalia, 79, set off an epic battle over replacing him on the high court. It will shake up the presidential race, and probably all three branches of government.

Scalia, the longest-serving member of the current court at almost 30 years, has been the “originalist” lion, insisting that the court should interpret the U. S. Constitution exactly as written.

As the leader of the five conservatives on the nine-member court, Scalia’s team usually forestalled the liberal bloc.

The liberal view was to interpret the constitution to fit changing times, rather than as words frozen in time more than two centuries ago.

The Scalia bloc in recent years has prevailed against forward leaning rulings on matters like gun control and abortion rights.

With cases on some of those subjects already on the court’s agenda, the replacement battle began publicly within 84 minutes after news of Scalia’s unexpected death at a West Texas hunting ranch broke. Even before some next of kin were notified, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican U.S. Senate majority leader, turned to politics.

McConnell released a statement flatly declaring that President Obama might as well forget his constitutional duty to nominate a successor to Scalia.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.” McConnell declared. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

The U. S. Constitution says the president “shall have Power… to…and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint…Judges of the supreme Court…”

McConnell’s call to block an Obama nomination replacing Scalia was quickly endorsed by several Republican senators – including some up for re-election in states that voted for Obama in 2012.

The irony was not lost on Democrats and other observers. In the name of choosing a replacement for for a strict interpreter of the constitution, McConnell and other Republicans were calling for ignoring the constitution.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said it would be “unprecedented” for the Senate to wait until next year to confirm a new justice, and a “shameful abdication” of the Senate’s responsibility. The longest wait between a Supreme Court nomination and its disposition by the Senate was 125 days, for Louis D. Brandeis in 1916. Obama has well over 300 days left in his term.

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Texas senator and former Supreme Court clerk, said nominating someone now wouldn’t “be fair to the nominee.”

“I think that hearing would end up very politicized,” said Cruz, who says he’s a defender of the constitution. “I think this is a matter of policy — that during a lame-duck period, we should not be confirming a Supreme Court nomination.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard Law professor, sarcastically blasted McConnell’s call to stall.

“Sen. McConnell is right that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice,” Warren said in a statement. “In fact, they did — when President Obama won the 2012 election by five million votes.”

The constitution clearly “says the President of the United States nominates justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate,” she wrote. “I can’t find a clause that says ‘…except when there’s a year left in the term of a Democratic President.’”

“Senate Republicans took an oath just like Senate Democrats did,” Warren pointed out. “Abandoning the duties they swore to uphold would threaten both the Constitution and our democracy itself. It would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that — empty talk.”

Some think McConnell’s dramatic call was more to get out in front on the appointment issue, and forestall a challenge to his leadership role from Tea Party senators like Cruz.

Anyway, President Obama said he plans to nominate someone soon. Observers think he will probably choose someone like Sri Srinivasin, who was confirmed in 2013 by the Senate for a Washington, D.C., federal circuit court of appeals judgeship – 97-0.

Srinivasin had clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor – like Scalia, a Ronald Reagan appointee. Spurning him would make it obvious Republicans are simply denying Obama an appointment, rather than picking good justices.

O’Connor, for what it’s worth, scolded her fellow Republicans for talk of not promptly filling a spot on the high court.

“I don’t agree (with them),” she said. “We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it.”

DAVE MCNEELY is a politial columnist. You may contact him at davemcneely111@gmail.com or (512) 458-2963.


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