Public viewing takes place Friday for late Justice Scalia

President Obama has begun to solicit advice from top Senate Republicans and Democrats in his effort to nominate a successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the White House said Friday.

Antonin Scalia, one of the most prominent conservative legal thinkers and a major influence on the Supreme Court, died this weekend at a hunting resort in Texas.

Biden, who presided over Supreme Court confirmation hearings while in the Senate, took issue with the notion that a Scalia replacement can’t be confirmed during Obama’s final year.

Scalia’s sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year.

Concerned any appointee Obama selects would tip the nine-justice court in liberals’ favour, Republicans in the Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have said the replacement should be chosen by the next president.

On a chilly, overcast day, Scalia’s casket was carried up the courthouse’s grand marble stairs and into its Great Hall by Supreme Court police officers in ceremonial dress, with a group of former Scalia law clerks flanking them in two long lines.

“It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia”, they wrote in a joint op-ed in the Washington Post.

President Obama on Tuesday said he will put forward a nomination, as allowed by the constitution. “That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote”.

“It’s perfectly within the history of the court and the Senate that we not bring up a nominee at all, so they shouldn’t be brought up”, he said.

Bell predicted that if such weighty cases are decided before the ninth justice is appointed, then it is likely those cases may be re-argued before the Supreme Court a second time.

The selection of a U.S. Supreme Court justice is a time honored process.

Obama’s presence at public events requires a massive retinue of Secret Service agents and security measures, while Biden’s “security footprint” is a little bit lighter, Earnest said, noting the White House had sought a “respectful arrangement”. “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session”, it reads.