Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away at a ranch in Texas Saturday. Scalia changed the conversation and approach by the SCOTUS during the 30 years he spent on the Bench. His near immediate effectiveness was one of the reasons democrats went after Robert Bork the year after Scalia was confirmed.
Scalia was a textualist, believing that the legal text’s ordinary meaning should govern its interpretation. This bypassed all the other foolishness and inquiries into non-textual sources such as the intention of the legislature passing the law. His opinions were concise and his dissents were blistering.
He became close friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Bench. They called each other best buds. They worked together on Sixth Amendment issues.
Scalia was one of the good guys in our lifetime. While his seat may be refilled, he will not be replaced. He was a game changer.
Senate leadership immediately said the right thing following his passing that they did not want to approve a replacement for Scalia by Obama. While initially positive, they almost immediately started crawfishing and backtracking and squishing out, mewling words about holding hearings. This nomination, whoever it may be, is going to make or break this majority. If they squish out (as I expect) they will be destroyed by their constituents this November and in the next three elections. If these cowards want to roll belly up and give Obama everything they want without a fight (it is now a kneejerk reaction), why not put the democrats back in charge again?
The election at the US Senate level just got to be all about replacing Scalia. It has been over 80 years since a lame duck president replaced a SCOTUS Justice. Seems to be a good precedent to continue following.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
Vice President Biden made the best argument to postpone the SCOTUS nomination process:
Biden in 1992: Pres. Bush Should ‘Not Name a Nominee Until Aft…
Biden in 1992: Pres. Bush Should ‘Not Name a Nominee Until After the November Election’https://grabien.com/file.php?id=79098&searchorder=date
Posted by Grabien on Monday, February 22, 2016
