Antonin Gregory Scalia

Often when we find ourselves in difficult or stressful situations we will depend on our formative years to decide what to do or say. I was shocked by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I find it impossible to remember a single legal opinion that he espoused that I agreed with. In fact, many of them I found to be personally repugnant and insulting. Nevertheless, I can hear my grandmother speaking to me right now… I can see her intense, gray-green eyes penetrating my soul, I can literally feel her tender touch on my face as she quietly says, “Charlie, if you can’t say something good about somebody, don’t say nothing at all”. So, I won’t say anything else about Justice Scalia. I will not say my “thoughts and prayers” are with his family, because that would be a lie, and I wish so many other people would stop telling that mindless lie. I do wish his wife and children well. I have known the grief of death too many times to wish that pain on anyone.

What motivates me to talk about Justice Scalia’s death is not the man himself, but the nation’s reaction to it. It is the knee-jerk opportunism, bigotry, obstructionism, and racism that emerged literally before his body could make it to the funeral home that is disgusting to me.

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution clearly states that the President shall have the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices with the advice and consent of the Senate. There is no ambiguity about it. There has never been any question or debate about it. Until now.

The republicans now feel that since the President is in the last year of his second term, none of that stuff in the constitution really matters any more. They think that President Obama should not appoint anyone to replace Scalia, and if he has the audacity to do it anyway, they will not consent. Period. Forget about it.

The republican candidates for President are saying, “we’ll have an election in about 11 months, let the American people decide who should appoint the next Supreme Court Justice”.

My millennial daughter would say, “What just happened?”

Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968. Since then, there have been 17 people confirmed as Supreme Court justices. The average time it took to confirm them was 57 days, or less than two months. The longest confirmation was for Clarence Thomas, (99 days, or 3 months). The shortest confirmation was for Warren Burger, (17 days, or 2 weeks!).

Time, is obviously not the problem. So why? Why are the republicans doing this? Is it opportunism? Bigotry? Obstructionism? Racism? There is a case to be made for each. Scalia was the most rock-solid conservative of them all. He was their ideological leader. To replace him with another liberal could literally change everything in America.

I can understand why the republicans would freak out over replacing him with a liberal justice. All of the things that they stand for would be potential defeats for them if they were decided by such a court. Abortion rights, LGBT rights, and immigration executive actions would probably all be confirmed. Decisions on Voting Rights, Gun Control, campaign finance (Citizen’s United), and affirmative action could potentially be reversed. Future challenges to the Affordable Care Act would be dead in the water.

 I understand. I feel their pain. If I were a republican, I would probably vote against such a potential judge too.

But that’s the point. I might vote against that judge, but I would not stand up and say the President should not even nominate anyone. I would not say I was against that person before he or she was even nominated.  I would not say “delay, delay, delay”. I would not say that we should let the American people decide. The Constitution says the President shall appoint, and the Senate shall provide advice and counsent. Besides, the American people did decide when they elected President Obama. Twice.

It is words and actions like these that validate the charges of obstructionism against the republicans. Every republican senator swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. To refuse to hold confirmation hearings and hold a vote on any President’s Supreme Court nominee would be unprecedented and a violation of the oath that each of them swore.

Of course, the on-going Presidential campaign adds opportunism to the problem. What better way to generate additional enthusiasm among the tea-party faithful? What better way to demonstrate your disgust and disrespect for the foreigner that has been illegally occupying the White House for the last seven years? What better way to demonstrate your determination to “take our country back” and “make America great again” than to tell the Kenyan-born secret Muslim in the White House that he’s already dismissed?

The republicans could have taken the high road. They could have allowed the process to play itself out. They could have expressed their condolences for Justice Scalia, allowed the President to nominate someone to replace him, held tough, but respectful hearings, sent the nomination to the floor, and voted no. They then could have respectfully encouraged the President to send another pigeon to be slaughtered. Dean Smith’s four corners offense could not have run the clock out more effectively. But that’s where the bigotry and racism took over.

They could not fight the temptation to put the President in his place. Again. The adrenalin created by their hatred of the President would not allow them to wait, to reason, to act responsibly. They couldn’t wait until after the funeral.

They couldn’t even wait for the body to get to the funeral home.

Hatred is a bitch.