Senators McConnell and Grassley suggest in a Washington Post opinion piece that “the American people . . . should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia.” Would that we could, but there is no mechanism in the American political system for that to be done. The presidential election will be determined by an electorate (disregarding the electoral college for the moment) with numerous and varied motivations regarding their voting decisions. No president can claim a mandate for any specific policy decision based on his or her being elected. Even less can any particular outcome for the Senate races be deciphered as producing a mandate for any particular course of action.
McConnell and Grassley surely understand this and it would be refreshingly honest to say we oppose letting President Obama make a choice because we think the Scalia vacancy can help us win the presidency in November and maintain control of the Senate. And, if they wanted to be brutally honest, they could further say we don’t want to be in the position of having to reject an Obama nominee, which we can easily do, because it could jeopardize our vacancy.
But politics is not about honesty. It's about trying to persuade the public you occupy the high moral ground and that you have their best interests in mind, unlike your opponents. What will happen, of course, is that President Obama will forward a nomination to the Senate, presumably one whom he will tout as highly qualified, in an effort to make the Republicans as uncomfortable as possible. The Republicans then must either move or not move on the nomination, likely arguing that this nominee would tilt the Court in a most undesirable liberal activist direction.
One thing is for sure. This vacancy will add a most interesting dimension to this 2016 president election year.
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