SCOTUS Justice Scalia Dead

[Quicklet]

Just came home to hear about this news. All I can say is "wow".

Welcome to the constitutional crisis I was talking about 6 months ago -- no way Republicans will let even a moderate justice replace Scalia.

[Rooney]

Republicans are pretty much in a no win situation with this. Not filling the vacancy gives us a lot of 4/4 decisions, which means a lot of lower (liberal) court decisions stand. Let a liberal/moderate through and the balance of power changes. Even if they got a Republican president, the dems can just filibuster the nomination (even letting it through just puts us back to status quo). Plus, the longer they leave the spot open, the more obvious it gets to independents that they're not interested in governing.

[Cantih]

My take is the GOP will have to let at least a moderate through.

Delaying past the election is the brass ring for them, maintaining the previous 4/1/4, and banking on the older justices dying, which are two liberal and one moderate, thus pushing the court 2/0/7 for conservatives.
But doing that puts the November election in more unstable territory, the stakes become higher, and the the odds of a higher turnout because of issue mobilization favors democrats. It's going big at the risk of losing it all.
There is a chance of this just happening anyway if the GOP decides to dig in.

So lets look at a moderate getting through, court becomes 4/2/3, November comes around.
Democrats win, the two older liberal justices immediately step down and are replaced with fresher stock. Court stays 4/2/3, with a chance of the older moderate kicking it and putting things 5/1/3.
Republicans win, assume all three of the justices in question decide to push daises. Court becomes 2/1/6. Not as great as 2/7, but still locking the court over to the GOP.

The safe move for the GOP is to make some noise along the lines of delaying things to look good for their base (maybe until it's clear just who the GOP candidate will be), then pass a moderate so as to not risk the state of the general election.

The other possibility is Obama banking on that, and nominating a liberal judge. It's risky, but has odds of playing to the lefts favor, and succeeding in forcing the GOP's hand.

[Rooney]

Anyone know how it works if Obama nominates someone and the senate delays past the end of his term? Does the new president get to renominate or do they have to wait on the senate to vote on the previous?

[Gredival]

My take is the GOP will have to let at least a moderate through.

Delaying past the election is the brass ring for them, maintaining the previous 4/1/4, and banking on the older justices dying, which are two liberal and one moderate, thus pushing the court 2/0/7 for conservatives.
But doing that puts the November election in more unstable territory, the stakes become higher, and the the odds of a higher turnout because of issue mobilization favors democrats. It's going big at the risk of losing it all.
There is a chance of this just happening anyway if the GOP decides to dig in.

So lets look at a moderate getting through, court becomes 4/2/3, November comes around.
Democrats win, the two older liberal justices immediately step down and are replaced with fresher stock. Court stays 4/2/3, with a chance of the older moderate kicking it and putting things 5/1/3.
Republicans win, assume all three of the justices in question decide to push daises. Court becomes 2/1/6. Not as great as 2/7, but still locking the court over to the GOP.

The safe move for the GOP is to make some noise along the lines of delaying things to look good for their base (maybe until it's clear just who the GOP candidate will be), then pass a moderate so as to not risk the state of the general election.

The other possibility is Obama banking on that, and nominating a liberal judge. It's risky, but has odds of playing to the lefts favor, and succeeding in forcing the GOP's hand.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/ni...ntonin-scalia/

SCOTUSblog's summary of how the parties will play out the politics is very good on this point.

[Prim]

Anyone know how it works if Obama nominates someone and the senate delays past the end of his term? Does the new president get to renominate or do they have to wait on the senate to vote on the previous?

Couldn't find a good source to be certain, but I believe that as long as the President nominates someone and it goes for Senate approval, the process can continue even past his term. If the Senate ends up rejecting the nomination after the current President leaves, then the new President would get to nominate someone. I don't know if there's a filibuster-like method to just not decide on things and leave it in limbo until the new President takes office.

Wait what am I saying? A way for the government to procrastinate? Of course there is.

[Wulfgang]

Onion Headline: Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-Year Battle With Social Progress





Really? Lots of people, include Justice J.P. Stevens, said the court has become much more extreme in the modern era compared to decades previous.

Perhaps, but I was talking more about specific "black eyes" to the Supreme Court like Chief Justice Roger Taney who affirmed slavery in the Dred Scott ruling on rather spurious grounds.

There's also ideological extremism and, for lack of a better word, "functional extremism." I would argue the Supreme Court has become much more extreme in the latter as it relates to encroaching upon the powers bestowed to the legislative branch. Ideologically I don't think the spread has changed that much, but I am certainly not an expert on the matter and would likely concede to a well-reasoned argument pretty quickly.

[Aerin]

Perhaps, but I was talking more about specific "black eyes" to the Supreme Court like Chief Justice Roger Taney who affirmed slavery in the Dred Scott ruling on rather spurious grounds.

There's also ideological extremism and, for lack of a better word, "functional extremism." I would argue the Supreme Court has become much more extreme in the latter as it relates to encroaching upon the powers bestowed to the legislative branch. Ideologically I don't think the spread has changed that much, but I am certainly not an expert on the matter and would likely concede to a well-reasoned argument pretty quickly.

I'd agree with this I think. I was watching an interview with Scalia and agree that it's not the responsibility of the court to apply a modern interpretation to everything, I mean the idea is that if you don't like that something like gay marriage (just as an example) isn't legal based off an old definition, that's for Congress to change. Of course the problem there is Congress seems to almost to nothing now.

[Zealot]

Perhaps, but I was talking more about specific "black eyes" to the Supreme Court like Chief Justice Roger Taney who affirmed slavery in the Dred Scott ruling on rather spurious grounds.

There's also ideological extremism and, for lack of a better word, "functional extremism." I would argue the Supreme Court has become much more extreme in the latter as it relates to encroaching upon the powers bestowed to the legislative branch. Ideologically I don't think the spread has changed that much, but I am certainly not an expert on the matter and would likely concede to a well-reasoned argument pretty quickly.

Fun fact: The DoJ library houses the only portrait of Taney, tucked off to one side and half-obscured by a pillar from most angles.

[Dimmauk]

Scalia's death might help the GOP alot in terms of getting more people to vote for a Republican president.

[Tymon]

What if Hillary or Bernie win the election and nominate Obama himself to replace Scalia?

[Quicklet]

I think this has as much potential to galvanize Democrats to turn out as it does Republicans. It turns the election from being a nebulous thing to a real choice.

Honestly, the best thing Republicans can do right now is confirm a moderate justice that might retain a 5-4 split on some of their issues to remove this as a reason for Democrats to come out and vote. They can still rile up their base and "make up for it" when RBG retires, but otherwise they risk having to confirm a true liberal to Scalia's seat if they lose.

[Churchill]

I mean, are we also pretending the D didn't do this same thing to Bush II (the Great)?

[Fiye]

You could also say the Ds were pretty salty about how the whole 2000 election went.

From June 2001 to January 2003, when the Senate was controlled by the Democrats, the most conservative appellate nominees were stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee and never given hearings or committee votes.[10] However, after the 2002 mid-term elections in which the Republicans regained control of the Senate by a 51-49 margin, these same nominees began to be moved through the now Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee.[11]

With no other way to block confirmation, the Senate Democrats started to filibuster judicial nominees. On February 12, 2003, Miguel Estrada, a nominee for the D.C. Circuit, became the first court of appeals nominee ever to be filibustered.[12] Later, nine other conservative court of appeals nominees were also filibustered. These nine were Priscilla Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, David W. McKeague, Henry Saad, Richard Allen Griffin, William H. Pryor, William Gerry Myers III and Janice Rogers Brown.[13] Three of the nominees (Estrada, Pickering and Kuhl) withdrew their nominations before the end of the 108th Congress.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George...The_filibuster

Suppose this will get a lot more attention since its the SCOTUS and not the 11th court.

[Xno Kappa]

Ironically enough, Scalia suggested Elena Kagan by name because he was under no illusions a conservative of his orientation would be recommended.

[dasva]

I'd agree with this I think. I was watching an interview with Scalia and agree that it's not the responsibility of the court to apply a modern interpretation to everything, I mean the idea is that if you don't like that something like gay marriage (just as an example) isn't legal based off an old definition, that's for Congress to change. Of course the problem there is Congress seems to almost to nothing now.

Yeah in a perfect world the political views of the justices shouldn't matter at all if they are doing their jobs. But then they'd basically have to admit that it's not the governments job to willy nilly override the will of the people except under a small set of circumstances

[Anoat]

Well it didn't take long for the crazies to start sharing this on Facebook, lol

[Fiye]

My response would be "Tell me again how LaVoy Finicum was assassinated by the FBI"

[Waraji]

Favorite headline courtesy of The Onion:

Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-Year Battle With Social Progress

[Bregor]

Onion Headline: Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-Year Battle With Social Progress

Yup