Death of Justice Scalia
Death of Justice Scalia
Re: Death of Justice Scalia
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
http://m.mysanantonio.com/news/us-world/article/Senior-Associate-Justice-Antonin-Scalia-found-6828930.phpRIP
dang. i like that guy
Well, at least his last day sounded pleasant, at a place with friends and family.
I also wonder how this will affect the other justices- he was friends with Ginburg, even though they voted opposed a lot. And Thomas... Thomas always voted with him, so what will he do now? Try and step into his shoes more?
Originally posted by snowdragon
10 bucks says republicans won't allow any confirmations of a new judge until they get a better feel for the nominations.
Actually, they've already stated intent to fight any nomination from Obama. Period, end-of-statement, not even 'unless he selects someone very moderate'.
Which strikes me as a weird stance, since why would you want to appear unreasonable in an election year? 'Putting it off til the next president,' isn't the most compelling reason when that's an entire year away and replacements don't take *that* much time, and who's legal responsibility it is is clear. Trying to pass the buck for an entire year is a bit transparently partisan.
Actually for 80 years no one has been confirmed in the last year of a president..so I don't think its weird or unreasonable.
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/431271/scalia-vacancy
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
Actually for 80 years no one has been confirmed in the last year of a president..so I don't think its weird or unreasonable.
Note from that article-
" Yes, Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in February 1988, but to a vacancy that arose in June 1987. He was nominated in November 1987"
It still only took 4 months from nomination of a candidate to confirmation, and Obama's going to be in office for 11 more months. If he doesn't drag his feat on selecting someone- and he should still have the shortlist from last time so it shouldn't be too lengthy a process- the senate can have over twice that length of time.
And before that:
"The last justice to be confirmed in an election year to a vacancy that arose that year was Benjamin Cardozo -- confirmed in March 1932 to a vacancy that arose in January 1932"
2 months from vacancy to confirmation!
80 years is largely a case of no-one has died at the *start* of an election year in quite some time.
Ok but we can at least agree that the next president should nominate someone, regardless if its Hilary or Trump.
Mitch M already said no one will be confirmed. And he has final say so on it. So thats pretty much it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/13/fight-over-antonin-scalia-replacement-heats-democr/
11 months with one empty seat is not the end of the world.
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
Ok but we can at least agree that the next president should nominate someone, regardless if its Hilary or Trump.
Eh, I don't see why. When it's been passed on, the gap has been *much* closer. A little foot dragging of a few months/passing of the torch can happen if it's near the line, but this is a case where there's the entire year open.
The constitution is clear on this being Obama's job, and if he makes a selection within the next two months- a reasonable time frame- then the Senate will have 8 months to confirm.
Also, ask yourself this: Would you really prefer an Obama nominated Justice... or the potential of a Hillary Clinton one, likely with a more liberal senate at her back (as *way* more purple and blue state republicans are at risk than this time, the map layout favors the Democrats just as it favored the Republicans 2 years ago) to put in a more liberal justice than President Obama could?
Mitch M already said no one will be confirmed. And he has final say so on it. So thats pretty much it.
Look up what Eisenhower did with supreme court appointments.
And the point is more, not-confirming is a blatantly partisan move, and foot dragging for an entire year will make a highly unusually long absence from the court. McConnell can say he's not going to do it, but that just means he's pledged to be obstructionist on it, not that doing so is business-as-usual.
Think of it tactically as well- The Democrats will likely to be able to point to an obvious piece of Republican stalling, for over 6 months, during an election so it'll affect the polls, when they're likely putting forth a very middle-of-the-road candidate. That's a lot of fuel to call them on 'party of no' stuff.
Frankly, I'm surprised they called their obstruction so open, it struck me as more likely that they'd say 'if there's a good candidate, we'll confirm...' and then turning and calling any candidate not good enough, but they aren't even going through that step.
You do realize that if another liberal judge gets put in the office, the country will spin out of control and the constitution will fall apart.
2nd amendment will be history as well as many others.
As far as the republicans stalling, they have passed all of Obama's stuff, they need to at least put up some sort of effort.
From that article
"Senate Republicans would be grossly irresponsible to allow President Obama, in the last months of his presidency, to cement a liberal majority that will wreak havoc on the Constitution. Let the people decide in November who will select the next justice.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/431271/scalia-vacancy"
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
You do realize that if another liberal judge gets put in the office, the country will spin out of control and the constitution will fall apart.
You do realize that's just empty spin, right? People just say that o get votes. None of the things that Republicans say will cause the country to fall apart have yet caused the country to fall apart (like remember how Health Care was, and instead what happened was the rate of health costs increase has declined drastically and 18 million Americans got coverage), and no-one even outlines what, specifically these liberal views are supposed to do to make things fall apart, just that they totally will. Somehow. It's political hot air, not the kind of thing you're supposed to take seriously.
Note the most damaging decisions of late, like the one to let in massive SuperPAC money (which, ironically, kinda screwed them over last election), were conservative-driven.
Also, Obama having the power to do so is directly laid down in the constitution. "Let's ignore the constitution or the constitution will fall apart' is not too believable, and certainly fairly ironic.
You sometimes complain about things being undemocratic- sometimes with good reason at that- but you're still quick to ignore that the democratic vote was solidly to give Barack Obama this position and these powers. Saying 'the President can't do so because he's too liberal' is way less democratic than superdelegates.
2nd amendment will be history as well as many others.
Ah, the 'let's pretend the 'well regulated' wording doesn't exist' amendment.
Or there's the separation of church and state thing.
Conservatives are pretty guilty of ignoring or bending the constitution when it doesn't suit them.
They're also guilty of calling a lot of things unconstitutional even when it's pretty clear under what causes it's allowed (the President is allowed to do things that help 'general welfare' for example).
As far as the republicans stalling, they have passed all of Obama's stuff, they need to at least put up some sort of effort.
What? Obama has literally gotten more stuff blocked than any other president on record, we hit record filibusters. John Boehner pulled tons of procedural tricks to even stop things that would've passed a vote in his Republican-majority house.
They've done more to block a duly elected president than any president since at least the civil war.
I know I've shown you charts on the subject before.
It does impress me how you can talk about 'passing all of Obama's stuff' and needing to put in 'some effort,' when they're at literally record levels of obstructionism.
And, hey, I can understand *some* effort, you're not going to like it that the other side gets stuff done even if they clearly have the official mandate to do so. But if the nominee is reasonable, you can maybe delay a few months, but passing the buck an entire year- which has not even been an informal rule, election year nominations have happened, and we all know how Republicans in congress love breaking informal rules- is a bit much.
From that article"Senate Republicans would be grossly irresponsible to allow President Obama, in the last months of his presidency, to cement a liberal majority that will wreak havoc on the Constitution. Let the people decide in November who will select the next justice.
[/B]
And note, that part is just an opinion, not a legal judgement. The national review is an openly hard-conservative paper.
This person, who has a vested interest in advocating hard conservative policy, wants the Republicans to do major obstructionism. Not a shock of course, but frankly, they don't have much procedural grounds to claim such, and like the quotes show, even claiming precedence is fairly shakey.
Supreme Court nominations sometimes- not always, but sometimes- stretch over 6 months, so not doing it right before a changeover makes sense, but they also take much less than a year.
Or to put it another way, this is asking generosity from the Dems and the voting populace as a whole on the extension of an informal rule, for the purposes of trying to be a jerk to Obama regardless of any information on the candidate, for no specific productive aim they can name, just partisanship.
The problem is that they would fall short of the 60 votes needed to break a very possible Republican filibuster.2 Indeed, that is one of the biggest problems Obama will have in trying to get any justice confirmed. He may be able to pick up a number of moderate Republicans, especially those facing tough re-election fights, but he’ll need at least 14 Republican votes to get to 60.That’s assuming he gets a vote on any nominee, because Republicans look like they may try to run out the clock until the end of Obama’s term. Conn Carroll, communications director for Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who is on the Judiciary Committee, tweeted that Obama has a “less than zero” chance of successfully replacing Scalia on the Supreme Court.
The Republicans are of course insanely obstructionist. Perhaps that will play well with their core, but I can't imagine that this kind of active destruction of the political process wins them points generally.
Originally posted by Q99
Short video recommending a former clerk of Scalia, a sometimes-democrat usually-independent who's highly focused on getting money out of politics and is very qualified for the job, as his successor that both party's voters would be happy with
Larry looks like Joe Dirt, I can't imagine him being a SC Justice. Hope is one thing, but the republicans control the senate, and can not even allow this on the floor of the senate. I know you will just say "the republicans are stalling" but what else can you say besides that. One thing you forget is the people voted those republicans in and gave the republicans the power in both the house and the senate. So how are you going to say blame the republicans when they were put in office by voters?