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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#71

Post by aioprisan »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64
liquidise wrote: post #45

This will likely result in a major political shift of the court. Even if Obama places a staunch centrist, it will be a net left swing, as Scalia was perhaps the second most conservative justice beside Thomas. There have been a great deal of 5-4 decisions since Sotomayor's nomination that in the future could easily fall the other way.

It would be interesting of Obama did nominate a staunch centrist right out of the gate, as a gambit to get in a new justice confirmed before the likes of Donald Trump gets to make a nomination.

That's not possible, since a senate confirmation this close to elections is likely to just be punted on for a year.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#72

Post by mikeyouse »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64
liquidise wrote: post #45

This will likely result in a major political shift of the court. Even if Obama places a staunch centrist, it will be a net left swing, as Scalia was perhaps the second most conservative justice beside Thomas. There have been a great deal of 5-4 decisions since Sotomayor's nomination that in the future could easily fall the other way.

It would be interesting of Obama did nominate a staunch centrist right out of the gate, as a gambit to get in a new justice confirmed before the likes of Donald Trump gets to make a nomination.

There's a precedent to replace 'like with like', so knowing that Scalia was very right-leaning, (if he gets the chance) Obama will very likely nominate a centrist, if not a right-leaning one. At least that seemed to previously be the case... In this new world of scorched earth politics, who knows..

Edit;

My guess for nomination:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Srinivasan

He's a Stanford guy, Indian, already sailed through the Senate for a DC Court of Appeals position, disliked by Unions, and by all accounts a brilliant legal mind. He's successfully represented corporate clients (e.g. Skilling in Skilling vs. USA) and had a successful career in the private world.

This somewhat contradicts my first paragraph, but he's definitely to the right of Kagan or Sotamayor.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#73

Post by themartorana »

orbitur wrote: post #43

He didn't actually say that, and I'm not sure how it spread. However, he's still a terrible person, and here's the quote yours spawned from: “There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction.” edit: This was originally in reply…

Text, tradition, and contemporary practice being far more important than justice, to Scalia.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#74

Post by geofft »

udfalkso wrote: post #3

A judge quoted in the article said, "my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected." Presumably he's talking about selecting a replacement to the supreme court. Is this accurate? How long does this process typically take?

Ted Cruz has already called for the process to get delayed for the next president. (Which seems ridiculous to me, since that's not in line with either Cruz's or Scalia's commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law, but hey.)

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/698634625246195712

The Senate had been (apparently) filibustering presidential appointments quite a bit more of late, both Democrats against Bush and Republicans against Obama, concluding in the Republican-devised "nuclear option" being used by the Democrats in 2013. Nominations by the president now only require a simple majority, not a supermajority, with the specific exception of Supreme Court nominees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_State...

It would not be surprising at all to see the same sort of filibustering that was previously applied to both Obama and Bush's nominations be applied to whomever Obama nominates to the Supreme Court.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#75

Post by [deleted] »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #64
liquidise wrote: post #45

This will likely result in a major political shift of the court. Even if Obama places a staunch centrist, it will be a net left swing, as Scalia was perhaps the second most conservative justice beside Thomas. There have been a great deal of 5-4 decisions since Sotomayor's nomination that in the future could easily fall the other way.

It would be interesting of Obama did nominate a staunch centrist right out of the gate, as a gambit to get in a new justice confirmed before the likes of Donald Trump gets to make a nomination.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#76

Post by smt88 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #72
fennecfoxen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting of Obama did nominate a staunch centrist right out of the gate, as a gambit to get in a new justice confirmed before the likes of Donald Trump gets to make a nomination.

There's a precedent to replace 'like with like', so knowing that Scalia was very right-leaning, (if he gets the chance) Obama will very likely nominate a centrist, if not a right-leaning one. At least that seemed to previously be the case... In this new world of scorched earth politics, who knows.. Edit; My guess for nomination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Srinivasan He's a Stanford guy, Indian, already sailed…

To my knowledge, the precedent is to replace "whoever left the bench" with "whoever is likely to agree with the current President's party".

Are there any examples where a liberal president nominated a conservative or vice-versa?

(I'm not talking about situations where someone was appointed as a conservative and moved gradually left, which actually happens to all justices.)

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#77

Post by themartorana »

PKop wrote: post #48
nbadg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely to be correct re: nomination, though it's difficult to know how the election will effect the confirmation process, and vice versa. Kagan was nominated May 2010 and confirmed August 2010; Sotomayor was nominated May 2009 and confirmed August 2009. I'm inclined to expect a nomination sooner rather than later, potentially of a candidate with very strong Democratic support. If Republicans oppose the nomination,…

OK, but if they do not oppose, their supporters will not support them in the election. They have a duty and obligation to oppose.

They may find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#78

Post by nwhitmore »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #47
hwstar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Look what happened when Bush was president, and the democrats stalled the election of supreme court justices. The republicans control 53 senate seats, and can refuse to confirm any justice till they know the outcome of the presidential election. If Trump wins, they'll stall until he takes office. If Sanders or Clinton wins, then they will grudgingly confirm who Obama chooses with some limits.

uhhhh... might want to check your facts on that one. Both Roberts and Alito went through on timelines similar to judges nominated by Reagan, H.W., and Clinton. The only nomination from Bush that faced extreme opposition was that of Harriet Miers, and that was from conservatives, not the democrats.

Does the name Robert Bork mean anything to you?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died

#80

Post by showerst »

udfalkso wrote: post #3

A judge quoted in the article said, "my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected." Presumably he's talking about selecting a replacement to the supreme court. Is this accurate? How long does this process typically take?

The math here is interesting for the republicans. A candidate has to confirmed by the senate judiciary committee (11/9 republican) then the whole senate (54/46 if the independents go dem as usual).

The general consensus, however, is that the democrats have a good chance at winning back the senate.

So the question for republicans is, do they accept a moderate candidate now, or stall until the election and risk having a democratic senate (and president, but that race is far too early to have a sense of, unlike the senate), and take the heat for taking 3-4 times as long as usual to confirm a justice, and have any cases under review potentially go 4 to 4 on the court, which means the lower court rulings in those cases stand, or the justices can request that they be re-argued.

For the democrats, you've got the current situation vs a chance to get someone more liberal in during 20 days of obama + the next senate (although pushing a nominee through in jan 2017 would have terrible optics), or waiting. Your risk is that the republicans win the senate and the president.

My sense is that the democrats will put forth someone fairly moderate, but it's hard to tell if the senate will stall it out or not. It likely depends on the nominee.

The Republicans hold all the cards, but the dems are probably in a slightly stronger position, because they only need two republican senators on the judiciary to decide that they'd rather not risk it, and two more in the full senate.

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