Battle already boiling over successor
Obama says he’ll pick a nominee; GOP vows to stop him
WASHINGTON Even before the American flag outside the Supreme Court had been lowered to half- staff in honor of Justice Antonin Scalia, the political battle over who would replace him — and who gets to choose — was roiling.
Scalia’s unexpected death while on a hunting trip in West Texas could affect the ideological tilt of the nation’s top court as it considers abortion rights, immigration law and other landmark
cases. The debate over his successor inflamed the 2016 presidential race, and it is likely to become a divide in competitive contests likely to determine control of the Senate in November.
President Obama promised to nominate a successor, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., vowed to block the effort, setting up the most contentious election- year debate over the makeup of the Supreme Court in decades.
“We ought to make the 2016 election a referendum on the Supreme Court,” GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “By the way, the Senate’s duty is to advise and consent. You know what? The Senate is advising right now. We’re advising that a lame- duck president in an election year is not going to be able to tip the balance of the Supreme Court, that we’re going to have an election.”
The Texas senator said he would support a filibuster nomatter whom the president nominated.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called that a grave mistake. “It would be a sheer dereliction of duty for the Senate not to have a hearing, not to have a vote,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. “If the Republican leadership refuses to even hold a hearing, I think that is going to guarantee they lose control of the Senate because I don’t think the American people will stand for that. They want to see us doing our job.”
Obama kept his powder dry Sunday while golfing with friends in California. White House deputy spokesman Eric Schultz said the president “will approach this nomination with the time and rigor required.”
“Given that the Senate is currently in recess, we don’t expect the president to rush this through this week but instead will do so in due time once the Senate returns from their recess,” Schultz said. “At that point, we expect the Senate to consider that nominee, consistent with their responsibilities laid out in the United States Constitution.”
Obama took about a month each to nominate Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the court after their predecessors’ resignation announcements, so a determination much sooner is considered unlikely.
If the Senate’s GOP majority refuses to consider Obama’s nominee, Democrats could raise accusations of obstructionism and hyper- partisanship against Republican Senate candidates, a potentially potent issue in swing states. Control of the Senate could depend on the fate of Republicanheld seats in such states as Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The prospect of a Supreme Court confirmation battle as an early order of business next year spotlights the stakes for both control of the White House and of the Senate.
“Given our strongly polarized electorate, voters will split on the Senate delay of Obama’s Supreme Court nomination,” predicts Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. “I don’t think the delay will rebound strongly to either party’s advantage in the election — just raise the election’s stakes to abnormally high importance.”
Political lines were drawn without the sort of period of mourning that once would have been considered courteous.
“I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time,” Obama said Saturday night in Rancho Mirage, Calif. “There will be plenty of time for me to do so and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote. These are responsibilities that I take seriously, as should everyone. They’re bigger than any one party.”
By then, McConnell had issued a preemptive written statement. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice,” he said. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
In 1968, when the Senate was controlled by Democrats, a coalition of conservatives in both parties blocked Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s elevation of Justice Abe Fortas to chief justice. LBJ’s successor, Republican Richard Nixon, named Warren Burger to the post.