Justice Antonin Scalia’s death broke with seismic force over Washington Saturday, setting up a monumental election year battle over whomever President Barack Obama chooses to succeed him with a nomination that could tilt the Supreme Court toward liberals.
Scalia, who was found dead on Saturday, was one of the most influential conservative justices in history and forged a decades-long legacy that prolonged Ronald Reagan’s conservative revolution, long after the President who nominated him left office. That reputation alone means the departure of the hugely influential, outspoken and eloquent associate justice will create political tumult. Scalia was also seen as a hugely powerful foe by liberal groups owing to his positions on issues like abortion and the Second Amendment, and those groups will pile enormous pressure on Obama to send a liberal justice to the Court before he leaves office.
But Scalia’s death in an election year raises the stakes even higher, setting up a titanic confirmation fight over his successor on the bench. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president’s nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will be even more difficult as the fight over Scalia’s replacement will emerge as a dominant theme of a wild presidential campaign.
“His departure leaves a huge political fight in the offing because this is a Court with five Republican appointees (and) four Democratic appointees,” said CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
“There will be one of the great battles in United States Senate history over whether President Obama’s nominee even gets a vote.”
“The Senate Republicans recognize how important it is to maintain a conservative majority on the court,” Toobin said, noting that Obama would leave office in January. “The question will be whether President Obama’s nominee, who I expect will come quickly, will get a vote at all in the remaining months of this presidency.”
Scalia’s death means that the 2016 election could effectively evolve into a battle involving all three branches of the U.S. government, the White House, the Supreme Court and Congress — given that there is a real chance the GOP could lose control of the Senate.
News of Scalia’s death broke hours before the latest Republican presidential debate and will add another explosive element to a heated GOP primary campaign. The fate of the Supreme Court and the possibility that the next President could get the chance to nominate at least two or three Justices and shift the ideological balance of the court was already a key election issue even before Scalia’s death.
It also places Republican Senate Majority Mitch McConnell in a delicate political position. The grass-roots of the Republican Party are already in open revolt against the party leadership in Washington — that fury is one of the factors behind the rise of outsider presidential candidates like Donald Trump and conservative Sen. Ted Cruz. So any decision to permit the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice appointed by Obama could send destructive political forces tearing through the Republican Party. There was no immediate comment from McConnell’s office.
But one source with knowledge of the situation told CNN’s Dana Bash that logistically and politically, it would be a big challenge to move an Obama nominee.