Obama chides senators to ‘do their job,’ vote on court pick

Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said that, barring an unlikely Obama decision to nominate someone in Scalia’s mold who wouldn’t change the court’s balance, it is clear Obama won’t get a nominee confirmed this year. Although Obama wouldn’t commit to nominating a “moderate”, Vice President Joe Biden said this week that the president was unlikely to pick “the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court”.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he seeks a Supreme Court candidate who “indisputably is qualified” for the job, while administration officials indicated he wants a nominee who can attract some Republican support and complicate GOP plans to push off any confirmation process until after the election.

A fierce political fight is brewing as the Democratic president prepares to name a successor to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. “Our role in the Senate is to evaluate the nominee’s temperament, intellect, experience, integrity and respect for the Constitution and the rule of law”, Collins said in a written statement, according to Politico.

The flag flies at half-staff outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Tuesday following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during the weekend.

Former President George W. Bush attended the funeral for Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

“If POTUS ignores precedent, I believe extraordinary circumstances give the Senate every right to deny the nominee an up or down vote”, Murkowski wrote, using an acronym for the president of the United States.

Johnson, the vulnerable Wisconsin Republican, said that he’d be fine with either having a hearing and casting an up-or-down vote – or letting the nomination languish.

“I think my Republican counterpart Mr. McConnell has made a bad mistake by saying that he is going to ignore the president”, Mr. Reid said.

Scalia died at a resort in West Texas last Saturday.

Four out of the past seven funerals for a Supreme Court justice have either had the president or vice president in attendance.

Grassley has offered mixed messages since Scalia’s death on how the Senate should proceed on the vacancy, alternating hardline views on blocking any nominee with comments not ruling out hearings. But Obama argued that “the Supreme Court’s different”. If there’s virtually no chance of Republicans bending, Obama might go another route – picking a nominee who galvanizes support among the Democrats’ liberal base and fires up interest groups in the election year. “It’s the one court where we would expect elected
officials to rise above day-to-day politics”. Steven Rattner, who led a White House task force on the auto industry under Obama, sent out a tweet accompanied with a headline declaring the president was not attending the funeral.

“It might be just as well not to have a hearing that… might mislead the American people into thinking this is just about the qualifications of the candidate”, Sen.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the committee’s top Democrat, prodded Republicans to act on whomever Obama nominates for a lifetime appointment to the court.