Reid says Obama will name Scalia replacement in a few weeks

Thus, a few thoughts about the nomination battle that should not happen.

Obama and his advisers have dismissed the GOP notion that the president will choose a polarizing nominee. It is a legitimate exercise of his authority to do so. According to an investigation by Politico, “New data compiled by the Congressional Research Service and obtained by politico found that the Senate in 2015 confirmed the lowest number of civilian nominations – including judges and diplomatic ambassadors – for the first session of a Congress in almost 30 years”.

You do not have to be a Republican or a Democrat to see the wrong that is impeding the political process. Public visitation was put on hold for about an hour while President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama came to pay their respects. So clearly, even before 1987, the president would not be entitled to the kind of deference that he deserves on executive appointments. In 2007 – 18 months before President George W. Bush’s term was up – Democratic Sen. 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.

No, we are not evaluating a lawyer; we are deciding whether Democrats get another vote on a nine-member super-legislature. He added he thinks they will “be forced, as much as they hate to”, to vote for this “very superior” candidate. That is politics, not law.

Republicans protested this 1960 vote, but didn’t have the votes to stop it.

“The American people are going to the polls in November to pick the next president”, Isakson said, “and I think the next president ought to be the one who fills that vacancy, not the one who’s on the way out”. Why not just follow what the Constitution requires? The fear Republicans have, at this point, is that Obama will nominate a liberal justice, which would shift the Supreme Court to a more liberal institution.

One of the term’s biggest cases will be argued on March 2, when the justices weigh whether Texas’ strict regulation of abortion clinics impinges on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The unexpected death of U.S. Supreme Court justice may have far-reaching impact, both legally and politically. But he has said that most important to him and his eight siblings was the love his father showed them. That position seemed at odds with McConnell, who urged Obama not to bother putting forward a candidate. As Williams walked away to have his picture taken, Marty Ellington walked down the Supreme Court steps with his two young sons, holding the white and gold bill given to those who entered the building to see Scalia.

As Scalia is remembered Friday, talk is likely to also focus across the street, to the Capitol, where the question hovers over whether Senate Republicans will successfully block Obama from winning a third appointment to the High Court. “The American public expects us to do the job we’re elected to do”.

A version of this piece previously appeared on National Review Online.

Or to prevent a nightmare of conflicting appeals decisions enshrining different law in different regions of the United States, perhaps the wavery Justice, Kennedy, will cross over to make up a mildly liberal majority, more attuned to the rights of the people and the healing of Mother Earth.