Obama Begins Search for Scalia Replacement

Conservative media and other figures have taken President Obama to task for his plan not to attend the Saturday funeral, and said he would have done so for a liberal-leaning justice.

Among those expected to attend is Vice President Joe Biden.

President Obama has been criticized in recent days for having joined the filibuster against Alito as a senator in 2006, an approach the White House has said the president now “regrets”. “The president doesn’t think that that’s appropriate, and, in fact, what the president thinks is appropriate is respectfully paying tribute to high-profile patriotic American citizens, even when you don’t agree on all the issues”.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said it seemed clear that Obama would not get a nominee confirmed unless he were to pick someone in Scalia’s mold, preserving the court’s ideological balance. Chief Justice John Roberts, his hands clasped in front of him, bowed his head.

The public will be allowed to pass by the casket after Friday’s private ceremony.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says more than 6,000 visitors came to the court on Friday to view Antonin Scalia’s casket in the Great Hall. At one end of the hall, visitors saw an oil portrait of Scalia painted in 2007 by the late Nelson Shanks, a one-time University of Kansas student whose other artistic subjects included former President Bill Clinton.

Since Scalia’s unexpected death at a Texas ranch on Saturday, White House lawyers and advisers have been scrambling to refine and vet a list of potential replacements, while also devising a strategy to push a candidate through the Republican-led Senate.

The watch will continue around the clock until the casket departs for Scalia’s funeral service Saturday morning. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived.

For 30 years, Scalia was the court’s most spirited, outspoken and oversized conservative.

“He’s been a wonderful jurist for 30 years, and he’s a patriot, so that’s why I’m here”, said Mary Jo Bieberich, who made a 62-mile round-trip from Annapolis, Maryland.

Senate GOP leaders have said no replacement should be named until the next president takes office.

“There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done in off years”.

Reid added that he thought Senate Republicans were going to eventually hold hearings on a nominee, and a vote will eventually be taken on the Senate floor.

Rhaleta Bernard from the New York City borough of Queens, where Scalia grew up, had been visiting Washington with her husband, Kelvin. It was the site of the 2010 funeral of Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., who served as secretary of state to President Ronald Reagan, and the 2008 funeral for Tony Snow, the TV news anchor who served as a press secretary to President George W. Bush.