Wow.
An outspoken opponent of abortion, affirmative action and what he termed the “so-called homosexual agenda,” Justice Scalia’s intellectual rigor, flamboyant style and eagerness to debate his detractors energized conservative law students, professors and intellectuals who felt outnumbered by liberals in their chosen professions.
Sloppy writing, because it’s not Scalia’s rigor, style and eagerness that were an outspoken opponent of abortion and the rest, but we get the idea.
This is huge.
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14 responses to “Vacancy”
Is it too much to hope that it could only possibly go uphill from here? It’s not like you could find someone who would have an even worse voting record, so either things will get better or they’ll stay about the same… and in the meantime there will either be a 5-3 vote whenever Kennedy gets his act together or a 4-4 tie.
Probably. Things always seem to find a way to get worse when you think they can’t. The bastards.
I assume Obama will nominate a replacement fairly quickly and Congress will seek to delay for as long as possible in the hope Ted Cruze wins. What do you locals think?
Locals are telling me there is no way the Republicans will let Obama get a justice through.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter if Obama somehow re-nominates Robert Bork–the sheer fact that Obama nominates someone (even if they have Perfect Conservative Credentials) will be enough to ensure that they never, ever get a confirmation hearing. It’s been that way for literally dozens of lower-court appointments for the last eight goddamned years.
(Not a local any longer, but American-born, and still a fairly avid follower of American politics.)
Oh, yes – I heard that about the lower courts once and meant to look into it, then forgot.
What a mess.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. It now becomes more crucial than ever that the Dems get more of a presence in Congress, which they might do alright at considering this is an exciting election cycle.
So how can they prevent the appointment of judges at all levels for so long? Surely they don’t want the processes of government to fail, leading to immense inconvenience and harm! Oh, wait….
Via various people in the know, I’ve been told that the longest that a nominee has had to await confirmation (or before dropping out) was 125 days, and that was Brandeis in 1916. Obama has ~361 days left in office. If the GOP decides to not confirm in an attempt to push the process into the next presidency, that will be totally without precedent.
NB: I have not double-checked those numbers.
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up you sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
Read more: Wizard Of Oz – Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead! Lyrics | MetroLyrics Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up you sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Read more: Wizard Of Oz – Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead! Lyrics | MetroLyrics
I wish Barack O. Could nominate himself.
Huge might be an understatement.
Assuming the Republicans refuse to take a vote before the election, the next President could replace Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer. That’s four new, relatively young, healthy moderate to liberal justices that could combine with Sotomayor and Kagan to form a six person majority for the better part of the next twenty years.
In pretty much every Presidential election of my lifetime (I’m 45) there has been a legitimate argument that those of us on the left should vote for the electable candidate even if we’d prefer someone else because the worst case scenario involves overturning Roe and sending us all back to the 50s.
It’s entirely possible that by the next contested primary, we don’t have to worry about the worst case scenario.
Wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?
The folks on the right always yammer on about how we’re one election away from the end of the world. Well, this time we’re one election away from defining American jurisprudence for the 21st century.
Here’s a candidate that they’d find hard to turn down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Srinivasan He worked under Bush and under Obama, but has had many corporate clients in private practice.
Nothing’s impossible, but the fact that he was confirmed 97-0 would make it tricky for the Republicans. Also his colour.
Jeffrey Toobin said yesterday he’s one to watch. Actually several law wonks said that.