Top Senate Republican says no vote on Obama’s Supreme Court pick

A fierce political battle is underway between Congressional Democrats and Republicans over whether President Obama should present the Senate with a nominee, with even the 2016 presidential candidates weighing in on replacing the former more conservative justice.

If the White House and Senate Democrats are going to have any chance of success on filling the Supreme Court vacancy, they’re going to need some Republican allies. He noted that some Republicans, including Senator Mark Kirk, have already said the Senate should do so.

“There’s not going to be any particular position on any particular issue that determines whether I nominate them, but I’m going to nominate somebody who is indisputably qualified for the seat”, he said. “Is this the legacy that he wants?”

A pair of moderate Republican senators broke ranks with their party leaders Monday and said President Barack Obama’s potential Supreme Court nomination should receive a hearing.

The senators spoke with reporters after meeting in private with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Associated Press, the New York Times and CNN report. Lindsey Graham of SC. Until the vacancy is filled, the court will operate with eight justices: four regarded as liberals and four regarded as conservatives. And embedded in the roughly 20,000 words he delivered on the Senate floor that day were rebuttals to virtually every point Democrats has brought forth in the past week to argue to the consideration of Obama’s nominee.

“It’s wrong and the American people, I believe, will not stand for this”.

There had been some speculation that Obama would use any gaps in the Senate schedule to fill Scalia’s job with a recess appointment. Yesterday, the Illinois Republican wrote an op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times in which he said what no one else in his party has been willing to say. Republicans have also said that if there is a nominee, there should be no confirmation hearings and no floor vote, while Kirk now expects to see both. A committee review and a hearing is the first step in the process.

“I’m pleased Senator Kirk has chosen under pressure to do the right thing and support the president’s constitutional duty to nominate a Supreme Court nominee”, Duckworth said in a statement.

Crawford explained: “That’s then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden, who in 1992 suggested he was just fine with blocking any election year nominees when President George H.W. Bush was in the White House“. “In this case, the Senate will withhold it”, McConnell said.

Scalia’s unexpected February 13 death ignited a major fight in Washington over whether Obama should be able to replace him in a presidential election year.

In response, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused McConnell of taking his cues from Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

“And his passing is a significant loss for the court and for our country”, McConnell said. I don’t know the goal of such a visit. “I would not be inclined to take one myself”.

If you go back to read the transcript of Biden’s remarks, he repeatedly states that he is concerned about vacancies that occur “in the summer or fall of a presidential election year” – not vacancies that occur as early in the year as Justice Scalia’s did.