Antonin Scalia passed

[_The CCC]

Too true. But a false symmetry none the less.

[_Some Schmo]

this is the dumbest meme circulating on this issue currently...even dumber than Obama assassinating Scalia.

She even notes "with the advice and the consent of the Senate"
How is it that when the Senate gives President the advice of "don't even bother" it is un-constitutional ? Exactly what duties are they abandoning?
Only idiocy equivalent to Warren's would suggest that "doing what Obama wants" is in the Constitution.

"Don't even bother (to do your job)" is advice? That's like saying, "I called my plumber for advice on a leaky faucet I have and he said, 'don't even bother.' What an awesome plumber, huh?"

Sounds like you're trying to start the dumbest related meme.

[_The CCC]

this is the dumbest meme circulating on this issue currently...even dumber than Obama assassinating Scalia.

She even notes "with the advice and the consent of the Senate"
How is it that when the Senate gives President the advice of "don't even bother" it is un-constitutional ? Exactly what duties are they abandoning?
Only idiocy equivalent to Warren's would suggest that "doing what Obama wants" is in the Constitution.

The Constitutional requirement that we have a functioning USSC. The Constitutional requirement that the President appoint a USSC member upon vacancy. Republicans refuse to govern and it is the black guy's fault.

[_subgenius]

The Constitutional requirement that we have a functioning USSC. The Constitutional requirement that the President appoint a USSC member upon vacancy. Republicans refuse to govern and it is the black guy's fault.

USSC? is that the same as Supreme Court?
Feel free to post whatever Constitutional requirements you are fantasizing about...but take a moment to note that Supreme Court can, and will, function with 8 members....so there's that. ...
Yes the President is required to nominate (we covered that already).
So, pony up them there references to which parts of the Constitution are being violated...did Obama issue an executive order that everyone is supposed to agree with him?

[_subgenius]

"Don't even bother (to do your job)" is advice? That's like saying, "I called my plumber for advice on a leaky faucet I have and he said, 'don't even bother.' What an awesome plumber, huh?"

Sounds like you're trying to start the dumbest related meme.

Are you wholly unaware of what it is that is "politics"?
What exactly was your "realistic" expectancy from these circumstances? Do you really believe that any Presidents nomination is just a formality? Are you comfortable knowing that you enjoy the minority opinion of agreeing with Obama's decisions?

[_Kevin Graham]

Feel free to post whatever Constitutional requirements you are fantasizing about...but take a moment to note that Supreme Court can, and will, function with 8 members....so there's that. ...

Yes, there's that... that stupid talking point again. "Function" as in maybe get by if we hope no serious issues arise? There is a reason why there are 9 judges, as to avoid a tie vote.

With Scalia gone and a 4-4 lineup of liberal/conservative judges on the bench, tied up decisions are more likely to happen now more than ever. Especially if we wait until the next President nominates someone, which would be about 18 months away before confirmation. All for what? To satisfy the hyperventilating that's going on in Right Wing circles. You folks don't give a damn about the Constitution. Never did.

You're all about justifying and rationalizing using the dumbest lies and spin that you can come up with. The biggest one was about the so-called "80 years" of no one ever confirming a judge in the last year of a presidential term. Just listening to these idiots make excuses as to why Obama shouldn't nominate anyone makes it all the more clear just how pathetic your party has become.

[_Kevin Graham]

Here’s why Justice Scalia would disapprove of GOP’s obstruction of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee

Justice Scalia was an originalist, which means he applied the Constitution to each case at its strictest interpretation. The fact that the Republicans are vowing to not allow President Obama’s appointee to get onto the Supreme Court is flat out wrong and unconstitutional. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution governs the appointments clause, which states that the President of the United States shall nominate and by advice and consent of the U.S. Senate shall appoint judges of the Supreme Court.

Republicans claim they want to take politics out of this nomination by punting until after the election season. But history is replete with instances in which U.S. presidents have appointed Supreme Court justices during election years. Such examples can be found with President William Taft, President Woodrow Wilson, President Herbert Hoover and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republican’s favorite president, Ronald Reagan, appointed Justice Kennedy in his late term with a Democratic-controlled Congress. There is no known practice of purposely leaving a Supreme Court Justice seat vacant just because it is an election year. Scalia as a constitutional purist would abhor injecting politics into this process and would be diametrically opposed to the Republicans’ actions.

Although it is clear, however, that Justice Scalia stood against social progress for the African-American community, it is important to point out the hypocrisy that the Republicans now espouse. If they held his ideas and legal prowess in such high regard, then they would not block President Obama’s appointee. However, they fear honoring Justice Scalia’s originalist bent because the appointee would undoubtedly be more liberal and will impact the ideology of the bench for a generation.

President can bypass Republican obstructionism by making recess appointments. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution allows the President to fill up all vacancies that may occur during the recess of the Senate. Thus, President Obama has the rare opportunity to make a recess appointment to the Supreme Court but could only do so this week and next week, as the Senate and House are adjourned until February 22nd. Last summer, the President’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Boards were overturned by the Supreme Court because President made them while the Senate was holding pro-forma sessions every three days. The High Court found that a true recess must last for more than three days. However, President Obama’s recess appointment would have to be approved by the Senate at the end of the next session of Congress or the position will become vacant again.

It is worth noting that, overall, modern U.S. Presidents have consistently made numerous recess appointments to various positions, but only President Obama’s appointments have been stymied time and time again. President Obama has only made 32 recess appointments, while Ronald Reagan made 232, George W. Bush 171, Bill Clinton 139 and George H.W. Bush 78 (served one term).

One thing that Democrats and Republicans understand is the next Supreme Court Justice will significantly impact our lives and the direction of this nation.

The African-American community and all progressives should vow to vote against any sitting official that refuses or fails to support President Obama’s appointee. At the end of the day, it is their job. We are all tired of paying Congress for their refusal to work with each other and our nation’s first black president.

[_Kevin Graham]

Why Ted Cruz's Preemptive Rejection of a Supreme Court Nominee Is Illegitimate

Antonin Scalia is dead. Is it legitimate for the Republican-controlled Senate to refrain from confirming a replacement for the late Supreme Court justice until a new president is elected, as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and others on the right have urged? Or does the Senate have an obligation to approve a qualified nominee put forth by President Obama, as many on the left argued as soon as news of the death broke?

The debate on Twitter was instantaneous. “The Democrat-controlled Senate confirmed Ronald Reagan's nominee to the Court, Anthony Kennedy, in his last year in office: 1988,” the liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald observed. Jim Antle, a paleoconservative, retorted with a Robert Bork reference, writing, “And it wouldn't quite have been in his final year if first choice had been confirmed in 1987.”

Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review declared that “the process outlined in the Constitution gives the Senate a veto,” and that “it’s no more or less fair to say that Obama should get his way than to say the Senate should.” There is truth to that position. If the Senate finds Obama’s nominee substantively unfit for the Supreme Court, it should decline to consent to the nomination, per its constitutional role.

But Ted Cruz crosses a line into illegitimate territory when he writes:

Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement.

That isn’t a call to fulfill the “advice and consent” function and to reject a bad nominee. It is a naked call for a strategic delay. Former Cruz communications staffer Amanda Carpenter, a conservative pundit, offers similarly wrongheaded advice:

Senate must move quickly to make it known that no nominee will be confirmed this year. Now. Do not let it become about whoever Obama names...For all the proliberals screaming in my feed: The Senate has no obligation, none, to confirm a nominee. That's their power.

But the Senate does have an obligation to fulfill its “advice and consent” obligation. Says the Constitution, the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court...” A preemptive rejection of any possible Supreme Court appointment is self-evidently in conflict with that obligation. The phrase “do not let it become about whoever Obama names” makes that explicit.

A man as versed in the Constitution as Senator Cruz should be embarrassed to posit that the nation could owe a debt to Scalia, that a “debt” to a dead man should play any role in a process governed by the Constitution, or that a sitting president’s nominee should be preemptively rejected before his or her identity is known. There is no agreed upon standard of what legitimate advice and consent entails. But any standard that rejects a nomination before it is even made fails the laugh test.

James Madison’s Constitution is not a living, breathing document that changes in meaning as an election approaches. A president is no less legitimate as a lame duck. The Framers intended for the Senate to give up-or-down votes based on a nominee’s merit, however it’s defined. The timing of an election should play no role. Constitutional conservatives should reject the contrary notions being advanced by opportunistic partisans, even if they ultimately side with those same partisans in finding Obama’s eventual nominee unworthy of being confirmed on the merits. Few truly believe that the Framers would regard “I want to wait until the next president is chosen” as a legitimate reason to block a Supreme Court appointment.

Now ponder a contrary norm, where it would be seen as legitimate for Senators to delay judicial nominations pending a political landscape is more favorable to the majority.

The harms of that approach are self-evident. Over time, the length of delays would inevitably increase. Mounting vacancies would cripple the ability of the judicial branch to function. Even more than is presently the case, prospective jurists would be chosen for their likely votes on a small number of hot-button issues. In the long run, everyone would be worse off than they would under the norms the Framers intended and that I’m again urging: timely, up-or-down votes on all nominees, based on their merits as jurists, not the odds of getting a more ideologically favorable nominee under whoever it is that sits in the White House next.

Senators should consult their consciences and act using this standard: a nominee that would’ve gotten their vote a year ago should get it right up until January 2017.

[_The CCC]

The Constitutional requirement that we have a functioning USSC. The Constitutional requirement that the President appoint a USSC member upon vacancy. Republicans refuse to govern and it is the black guy's fault.

USSC? is that the same as Supreme Court?
Feel free to post whatever Constitutional requirements you are fantasizing about...but take a moment to note that Supreme Court can, and will, function with 8 members....so there's that. ...
Yes the President is required to nominate (we covered that already).
So, pony up them there references to which parts of the Constitution are being violated...did Obama issue an executive order that everyone is supposed to agree with him?

United States Supreme Court.

Not really. Sure a car can operate with just 3 wheels but not as well as it could.
SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_ ... ll_of_1937

[_MeDotOrg]

The whole issue of whether or not Obama should nominate a new appointee is reason number 57,234 why politics drives me crazy.

How many Democrats and Republicans would change their minds if the situation was reversed, and there was a Republican in the White House?

We pretty much know the answer: quite a few. And this is one area where I think the media gives politicians too much of a free pass. Opinions should be made to pass the 'equivalency test' for the future. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If it is correct that a President should not nominate a Supreme Court Justice 9 months before an election, let's make that the law.

So let's think about this as a statutory problem. Should there be a law stating at which point in his term a president can no longer nominate a Supreme Court Justice? Should we say, for example, that anytime after an election and we have a President-Elect, any vacant nomination belongs to the new President? And it you think it should be before that, how much further and why?

I would love it if people would get politicians to talk about the principles governing their opinions, and whether or not those principles can be translated into a statutory framework. It may not change their short-term behavior, but in the long term it might make it a little easier to hold the feet to the fire of politicians whose 'principles' bend with the wind.