Scalia lies in response at supreme court

“I think it will be a little over three weeks”.

The flag-draped mahogany casket of Scalia, who died last Saturday at age 79, was carried by eight Supreme Court police officers into the Great Hall of the Supreme Court building through a somber line of dark suit-clad law clerks who once worked with the Justice.

In a day of ceremony and tribute, the casket carrying Justice Antonin Scalia will lie in repose at the Supreme Court where he spent almost three decades as one of its most influential members.

There are signs that some Republicans are softening their stance, despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s insistence that Obama should not even make a nomination. Obama has challenged Republicans to live up to their avowed adherence to the Constitution and agree to vote on his eventual nominee.

– Obama will “move promptly” in picking his Supreme Court nomination and has begun to work with senior members of his team on who should replace Scalia, the White House said.

The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justice’s son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers at a private ceremony before thousands of people filed through the court’s Great Hall, where Scalia’s casket lay on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

“I do believe that the nominee should get a hearing”, the Alaska Republican told reporters In Juneau Wednesday, according to the Alaska News Dispatch.

A spokesman for Reid said his remarks were directed at other federal judgeships, not Supreme Court justices.

Maddow followed up, “Should president Obama do that with Senator [Chuck] Grassley [current chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee]?”

The funeral Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11 a.m.at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, said this week Republicans could appear as “obstructionists” if they reject a nominee outright. As Earnest noted, both Grassley and McConnell voted to confirm Justice Anthony Kennedy in the final year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

Pickering has a unique perspective because he faced an opposing Senate when he was appointed by George W. Bush as the 5th circuit court judge.

The White House has not said what Obama plans to do on Saturday.

A CBS News poll and a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed Americans closely split along partisan lines on whether Obama should name Scalia’s successor.