Justice Antonin Scalia, the longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court and an intellectual leader of the conservative legal movement, died Saturday, and his death set off an immediate political battle about the future of the court and its national role.
Scalia, 79, was found dead at a hunting resort in Texas after he did not appear for breakfast, law enforcement officials said. A cause of death was not immediately reported.
President Obama, who disagreed with Scalia’s jurisprudence, nevertheless praised him as “a larger-than-life presence on the bench” and a “brilliant legal mind [who] influenced a generation of judges, lawyers and students, and profoundly shaped the legal landscape.”
Obama said he would nominate a successor, even though the Senate’s Republican leadership and its presidential candidates said an election-year confirmation was out of the question.
What? Why is an election-year-confirmation out of the question? On whose watch did Scalia die? I sincerely hope that the Republicans will not attempt trickery, obstruction and chicanery to block what is President Obama’s constitutional duty. November is 9 months away and the inauguration is 11 months away. That is plenty of time to replace Justice Scalia, if everyone is honest and does his or her job.
Funny how that Constitution is so freaking important…until it isn’t.
It’s Obama’s job to appoint a new Supreme Court justice in a timely fashion. Why is it that if he nominated Jesus Christ, I think that the Senate Republicans would block the nomination?
