The unexpected death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia moves the campaign focus to replacement because the issues before the
Supreme Court involve some very contentious and divisive ones. Court
decisions currently break 5 to 4,
favoring conservatives, but not always.
If anything, control of the White House that nominates and the Senate
that confirms nominees will now take on immediate urgency as the stakes, the ideological tilt of the
Court, just became higher. The likely outcome for the near future is chaos in
interpretation of laws and a greater
emphasis on partisan strategic thinking in the race to
the White House .
The impact of the GOP winning the White House and/or
keeping the Senate majority would continue the tilt for years
to the right on critical issues now before the Court, from women’s access to
abortion, climate change, voting and equal rights, affirmative action and
immigration. The Supreme Court’s decisions influence public policy far
beyond presidential terms or flux in Congressional makeup.
GOP’s announced intention is to block in the Senate
any nomination President Obama offers, regardless of qualifications or degree
of ideological moderation. The GOP
strategy is to delay confirmation until
they win the White House and the Senate to put their conservative nominee onto
the Court’s bench. The GOP majority Senate has the votes to delay the confirmation process. In order to get
confirmation before the swearing in of a new President in January 2017, President Obama will need 14 Republican votes
in the Senate, highly unlikely in Washington’s extreme partisan election year
climate.
Leaving the Court seat vacant until after the new president is
sworn in and appointment is nominated and confirmed could likely mean
four to four tie votes on contentious issues which would result in letting the lower federal court
rulings stand. Most issues currently
before the Court concern decisions by
conservative dominated lower courts. Except
for the issue of public employee unions, a Court tie vote would favor the
conservative agenda.
Temporary chaos is possible, since some other lower courts in
some districts have had decisions that conflict with conservative dominated courts. Laws could be
enforced unevenly in the country on a court
district by district, appeals court basis and we could expect a flurry of
challenges being filed in lower Federal courts seeking clarification.
If the confirmation is delayed by GOP tactics in the Senate,
then the risk for Republicans is that
they could lose the race to the White House or see Democratic coattails tilt
the Senate to Democrats. They will have lost their chance to replace ultra
conservative Scalia with an equally
conservative ideologue and the Court
would tilt to the left of center on
issues dear to conservatives.
The flip side is that if the Democrats persist in nominating a
candidate who turns off the middle of the roaders and lose the White House
and/or Senate, the court would continue
to tilt conservative.
The wrong presidential nominee could harm either party’s control of the Senate. Coat tails count. In
Colorado, the GOP will challenge Democratic incumbent Senator
Michael Bennet. An extremely anti immigrant presidential nominee could
cause an increase in the turnout of the swing vote in Colorado, Hispanics, with
the outcome helping Bennet.
A version of this was published in the Sky Hi Daily News February 18, 2016
A version of this was published in the Sky Hi Daily News February 18, 2016
https://www.yahoo.com/news/results-key-cases-could-change-scalias-death-094801989--politics.html
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