Death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Balance?

With the passing of Scalia we now face a situation that can tip the balance of the nation towards a more progressive stance in a variety of issues. Will Obama be able to get a replacement before his time is up or will the Republicans block him? If the next president is a Democrat will Republicans continue to block? How will this effect the presidential race?

Holy shit.

There is no way this is going to go well.

I feel if the Republicans block a nomination indefinitely, they'll start losing independents in the next election.

Obama will likely make a nomination as soon as possible. The Republicans will have already moved to try to block this nominee, regardless of who it is, saying that a president should not make a nomination for a position with a lifetime term in an election year. This will be a huge talking point for the remainder of the presidential race. I think if the candidate is not confirmed before the election, they will likely end up getting rejected by Senate, unless the incoming president also publicly supports the candidate (which they will not do if they are Republican, but will likely do if they are Democrat), and even then, they have a good chance of being rejected.

Also, for what it's worth, I think whether voters will be swayed or not by Republicans blocking the nomination will be affected by the nominee. Some voters may be swayed TOWARDS the Republicans if they happen to not like Obama's nominee.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans blocked the nominee up until, during, and after the election and then blocked them for the next 4 years or so.

I'm looking forward to the expert armchair political commentary that only this corner of the internet can muster.

Well, I'll preface this by saying that I am (1) an attorney and (2) a left-leaning independent (I actually think of myself as progressive, but Bernie seems to have claimed that territory So. Fuck. That.) so I think the nomination it too important to play politics with and Congress should shut up with all their bitching, eat their vegetables, and do their fucking jobs.

So with that self-righteousness out of the way, Republicans have every incentive to block any nomination that gets put forward. First, they control the Senate, so no confirmation can take place without at least some of them defecting. Second, if they win the presidency, other liberal justices are unlikely to last through another presidential term (Ginsberg is so old she needs to be put in cryostasis between hearing cases), so if they wait, they can pack the Court with a ton of ultra-conservatives. By being stubborn, they could get one more than they'd have by confirming whoever Obama put forward.

Of course, in the short term, it's likely going to be painful for them this next judicial term. There were a lot of cases the Republicans stood a good chance of winning, but that might not come off now. The Court was 4-4 before with Kennedy being the swing vote. Now, even if Kennedy sides with the conservatives every single time, the vote would still be 4-4. At the appellate level, a tie goes to the lower court. That probably flipped a case about unions called Frederichs and also probably flipped a challenge to Obamacare on religious grounds.

As far as blocking nominations into the next presidency, I don't think they'd get much mileage out of that. In addition to the fact of the whole 4-4 issue, at a certain point, they'd just look stupid. Not that most Republicans don't look stupid now, but we're talking coming out of it with "Gingrich Imma Shut Down the Gov't" levels of backlash.

It's too bad that Posner out of the 7th Circuit is too old. He's just about the perfect amount of ambiguous for everyone. Generally conservative, but then smacks down gay marriage bans in Illinois and Wisconsin (and look up those oral arguments if you get a chance. He's throwing an unbelievable amount of shade at the attorney's representing the state governments in that one). If he were a little younger, you could nominate him as a compromise candidate on the understanding he wouldn't last real long on the Court.

@dancinginfernal: my thoughts exactly.

This election season has already been batshit insane, and caused me to check out from all but the major, major happenings, but this happening right now is going to make it so much worse.

If anyone needs me I'll be living in some MMO world. Or some VR world. Which candidate is pro-VR?

I feel horrible for his family and friends as they have lost a loved one. At the same time I'm nervous...cause with all the madness going on because it being an election year there is no TELLING how this is going to end.

@lawgamer: Interesting insight. The most interesting thing to me is how you're indicating that the Republicans will probably not have much luck blocking the nomination into the next presidency. I would have thought that a likely thing to happen to force a new nomination.

Seems like Obama's pretty adamant about going ahead with a nomination. Good on him, I say. Nominating SCOTUS justices isn't only something that the president's allowed to do, but also something that he's obligated to do. The whole 'not in an election year!' objection is utter nonsense (and I think the people peddling it are very much aware of that--no Republican senator or presidential candidate honestly believes that a president should simply let an empty SCOTUS seat stay vacant for a year).

If Republicans successfully rebuff Obama's nomination, only for the next president to be another Democrat, they'll have to give in eventually. Rest assured, they'll still make it hell for any judge put forward by a Democrat to replace Scalia (and may even succeed in getting a centrist nominated), but they wouldn't try to force the SCOTUS to remain understaffed for another four full years. It would be too blatantly undemocratic, even for them.

I get why people are doing it but politicizing a person's death is a little gross to me.

@sergio: Let's hope you're right! Because the current congress has proven time and again they are nothing if not obstinate and intractable.

@jasonr86: I know some people think that it's not ok to talk ill of the dead but I have to ask: why? By most accounts, the guy was kind of a dirt bag:

I'm not really surprised that Republicans are politicizing his death.

As Obama mentioned in his speech it is known that Scalia has a history of making "colorful comments."

@pyrodactyl: @golguin:

I get it. But why sink to that level? It seems more appropriate to be classy and show respect even if the person being shown that care may not deserve it. Right?

@pyrodactyl: You may not agree with the results of many of his decisions, but the guy served his country dutifully for more than 30 years. He has helped shaped much of our recent history and really doesn't deserve to be called a dirt bag on the day of his death.

@guykazama: I get where you're coming from, but Scalia pretty actively fought against a lot of social progress and many people aren't going to be willing or able to put that aside for even a moment. Personally, I don't blame them, and considering the high profile issues that a lot of active cases address, there really isn't a ton of time to look the other way and pretend that Scalia's now vacant seat isn't incredibly important.

To all the people in this thread so concerned about sensitivity to a man's death, just remember, Antonin Scalia's callsign was being a complete smartass about issues that other people thought were important. He always had something that he thought was very clever to say, whether it be regarding gay marriage, racial issues, or gun rights, and didn't give a crap if it offended people.

If anything, if Antonin Scalia saw this thread, the most upsetting thing to him would be how no one has said anything all that funny yet about his death.

@jasonr86: You can't spend the last 30 years of your life being one of the most important political figures in a country and not expect that to continue after your death.

@guykazama: A person's death doesn't suddenly excuse their past actions. What's more disrespectful, calling out Scalia for being the man that he was, or trying to hand-wave it all away, ignoring the millions of Americans he openly denigrated and sometimes actively fought to criminalize for simply existing? I'm sad that a human being is dead but I'm fucking dancing to the massive implications this has for our country, both immediately and in the potential long-term.

@starvinggamer:

I guess so. I don't know, I just prefer when people show class. How people respond to a person's death says a lot about them and a lot less about the dead person.

It says a lot about both.

Yeah.

@starvinggamer: This should be interesting to see how it plays out. In terms of Scalia, however, he was a strict reader of the Constitution. I don't see how you can assail him because he read the Constitution differently than you do. His opinions and dissents were generally well reasoned and respected, even by those that disagreed with him.

"Someone shouldn't be appointed in an election year" is absolute nonsense, but I'm pretty sure we'd be hearing the same thing from Democrats, if the tables were turned. I can see Republicans dragging this out for as long as they can, though, especially after Obama's use of executive orders. But is that petty revenge, or is it taking a stand against someone who has been ignoring the intended purpose of a body of government? Ultimately, the voters will decide that one.

I hate politics. So many hypocrites.

Agreed. It's also sad when people use that tactless behavior as ammunition, and conflate their opposition together with "see, this is how THEY are!"

Forcing oneself to be polite about the death of pieces of human garbage is cowardly. The Onion's headline, Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-Year Battle With Social Progress is one of the better things I've seen thus far.

@guykazama: I don't remember saying anything about his ability to present a cogent argument.

I don't think we'd hear that from modern Democrats, considering they didn't have a problem confirming other nominations during election years.. It would still be stupid to use President Obama's use of executive orders as an excuse, considering plenty of Presidents before him have used executive orders much more often than him.

This is more an issue with the modern GOP.

I never celebrate death. This said, it has been a good day.

Feel free to apply Christopher Hitchens' great speech about Rev. Jerry Falwell to Scalia.

#FEELTHEBERN

Finally the door is open for Jeff Gerstmann's ascendancy. #murderslingshot

For those who care about Obama using his power to ignore congress--for instance, congressional Republicans--I don't think how often that power has been used is the issue, here. This would be their argument:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/31/claims-regarding-obamas-use-of-executive-orders-and-presidential-memoranda/

“That tally is almost entirely irrelevant to this dispute [over executive action] because executive orders are only one way a presidential administration can take action without congressional approval,” he said, noting for instance the use of presidential memoranda. In fact, many of Obama’s most controversial actions on immigration and gun rights also did not involve executive orders.

...

Sometimes data can be misleading. While the counting of executive orders appears to be an easy way to measure the extent of presidential action, it provides only a partial picture. Such charts also assume that every executive order is equal, which is clearly not the case.

But there is also no easy and accurate way to count presidential memoranda across presidential administrations, especially because it is up to each president to determine whether they should be published in the Federal Register. So merely counting these documents would actually punish a president seeking to gain additional visibility for his or her actions.

What matters then is substance, not the numbers. As we noted, many of Obama’s most controversial executive actions were undertaken with neither an executive order nor a presidential memorandum.

The White House appears to want to have its cake and eat it too, bragging about its “year of action” while pointing to numbers that play down Obama’s use of executive authority; the president even said he had been “very restrained.” But the media has dropped the ball too, highlighting an unhelpful numbers game.

But I do love hypocrisy, so if you know of some times when a recent Republican president has used his power to specifically circumvent Congress and pass his own laws that he could never get approved otherwise, I'd be happy to hear some examples.

Good, fuck both of them

Theres literally nothing wrong with celebrating the death of a literal murderer

Im unfamiliar with Scalia other then when he put forward games should be protected under the constitution, could you please link me to when he murdered someone?

@guykazama: Guy was a racist and a homophobe which hardly constitutes "doing a good job" as a Supreme Court justice.

I find it hilarious, the implication that an Obama appointment would somehow be "balance"

He's talking about Thatcher, not Scalia. Some liberals/socialists/generally left-leaning people still get obscenely upset whenever her name is mentioned anywhere and they usually fantasize about desecrating her grave or generally express happiness about her death. She was the prime minister of the UK throughout the 80s. Usually the people who get very angry about her live in northern England or Scotland, which had very high unemployment rates and poverty as a direct result of major recessions that occurred during her reign. Most of the people that still have an intense hatred for her are usually not very well versed in what actually happened during the 80s in Britain and just view her as some sort of conservative/right-wing boogeyman and the hatred expressed for her is usually passed down through working class families.

Obama steps down, Biden nominates him

Man some of these reactions are crazy, I may have disagreed with the guy on just about everything but I'm not going to celebrate Scalias death.

Giant Bomb: the classiest corner of the internet.

@getz: I find hilarious that you single out obama's appointement when it's clear any appointement from reps or dems would be a partisan appointment under the current corrupt and broken system.

But hey, we can at least take solace in the fact that democrat justices are more aligned with the actual scientific facts and general common sense.

He're a handy list of garbage decisions made by Scalia in the last 20 years.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/02/14/jf-10-of-the-worst-decisions-of-antonio-scalias-career-with-quotes/

Net result: more homophobia, racism across the board and widespread corruption in the electoral system. Good times

@carryboy said:

"Justice Scalia Says Executing The Innocent Doesn't Violate The Constitution"

Also no he didn't "protect games under the consitution" he voted in a 7-2 case that selling violent games to minors shouldnt be criminal it was hardly pivoting on him

1) I'm not a he

2) Thatcher literally commited war crimes and propped up fascist dictators on top of destroying national industries in favour of corporations so never post again

I don't think it's in the constitution that black students are being pushed into schools too advanced for them.

Full well aware of how absurdly arrogant this is going to sound, it says something about the tone of the political discussion here that even I don't want anything to do with this thread anymore.

Thatcher also covered up a pedophilia/child molestation ring among British elites.

From reading his Wikipedia page top to bottom (The source of all my knowledge) the guy really doesn't seem all that bad, Infact I kinda like him now.

RIP

I have a feeling this thread wont be open for terribly longer, call it a hunch. But before that happens, Motherboard just released a quick article I thought I would link to, that at the very least give another perspective on the man that he gave video games the artistic due they are worth. Motherboard link.

That doesn't mean he is a great guy all of a sudden, it wasn't JUST him after all, but it helped kind of show to me that, you know, the guy was human, a human who probably shouldn't have had the power he did, but all the same wasn't, you know, MechaHitler either. Hopefully whoever takes his place is more socially progressive and less like someones grandpa who is stuck in the past, but I'm not cheering either.

Well this has gone way off topic and quickly devolved into petty arguments. What a surprise.

We tend to give a little more leeway with topics that are about games or the site, but with political threads like this? Nope.