If you didn’t think this election year could get any more dramatic, guess what? It just did. With the unexpected death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the political talk on Capitol Hill has just shifted radically, again.
The Supreme Court has been surrounded in controversy since its founding. It is the only branch of the federal government whose members are not elected and whose terms are not limited. Instead, they are instead nominated by the president and then approved by Congress. In essence, when a president is elected, you are also electing whomever the president nominates for office in the Supreme Court.
Justices of the Supreme Court serve for life unless they resign, retire, take senior status, or are removed after impeachment (though no justice has ever been removed). So now, with the vacancy created by Scalia’s death, the debates among candidates and federal officials have all changed.
On one hand, President Barack Obama is now no longer the lame duck everyone perceived him to be. While the drama of the 2016 presidential elections has been unfolding, attention on Obama has been small. Both presidential candidates and the media have shunted Obama to the side in order to focus on the upcoming election. Now he is back at center stage.
As of right now, of the eight remaining justices, two were appointed by former President George W. Bush, two by former President Bill Clinton, one by former President George H. W. Bush, one by former President Ronald Reagan, and two by Obama.
Now, ideally, the Supreme Court is supposed to be unbiased and fair. In reality though, presidents nominate justices who share their political leanings. So what this means is that the Supreme Court is evenly split between conservatives and liberals.
Obama has already appointed two Supreme Court Justices, and now he has an opportunity for a third. In short, that means that three of the nine justices, a complete third, will have been appointed by Obama. This will greatly strengthen the legacy he wants to leave behind when he leaves office.
Congress, where the Republicans hold the majority, will inevitably do everything they can to stall Obama’s nominees in the hope of having a Republican president appoint a conservative justice to replace Scalia. Is it feasible for Congress to do this? The theory exists, as any nominee has to be approved by Congress, but I seriously doubt that Republicans can stop Obama indefinitely without suffering in the November elections. I also doubt that Obama will try to compromise and deal fairly with both conservatives and liberals. So, inevitably, Congress, Obama and the presidential candidates will slug it out over Scalia’s replacement in a long and drawn out battle that will leave everyone with a headache.
If you thought the 2016 elections were ugly already, well, it just got uglier.
