The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is calling on Senate Republicans not to consider anyone President Obama nominates for the Supreme Court in light of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death this weekend.
In an unsigned editorial on Monday night, the Journal, usually known for making legal arguments, struck a mostly political tone in saying that GOP leadership in the Senate “are right to say that the Senate should refuse to consider any nominee this year.”
“[P]rogressives have made the Court so political that it’s understandable that Republicans want to let the next president fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy,” said the Journal. “A GOP senator who voted to confirm an Obama nominee would demoralize his own supporters. Meanwhile, the outrage among Democrats over being denied a vote is entirely synthetic as they use the issue to mobilize their own partisans.”
After Scalia was pronounced dead Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would block any Obama nominee to fill the vacancy, which, if filled with a more liberal justice, would swing the balance of the conservative-leaning court to the opposite direction.
The six remaining GOP candidates have also said that a nominee should not be confirmed until the next president is sworn in in January.
The move to keep the court vacancy unfilled during an election year has no precedence, according ot the legal website SCOTUS Blog. In the past, however, Democrats have attempted to make it more difficult for a Republican president to replace a seat on the Supreme Court in the waning years of his final term.
The Journal said, “The reality is that no one President Obama is likely to nominate for the Court this year has a chance to be confirmed in a GOP Senate… Conservatives would revolt if Republican senators voted to confirm any other Obama appointee.”
