Scalia found dead at West Texas Ranch

[Martinus]

Internet really sucks for politicians. 

[Jaron]

Bush Sr was always like "Noun, Verb, SC Nomination"

[Siege]

Wow, that is going to be huge.

Obama gets to replace a Conservative stalwart on the bench...

No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe within his last 12 months in office.
I am sure 0bama will abide by this rule....

[Siege]

Internet really sucks for politicians. 

3rd greatest invention in human history, after writing and the printing press.

[Siege]

The internet, not politicians.....

[Valmy]

No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe within his last 12 months in office.
I am sure 0bama will abide by this rule....

This cannot possibly be true. I cannot recall lots of extended periods with empty spots on the Supreme Court and there is certainly nothing in the Constitution demanding that. I am not even sure what the basis for this would be. Obama does not get to nominate the justices during the first 12 months of the next President's administration so why would the opposite apply?

But I willing to concede if there is such a rule, though that strikes me as bizarre.

[Berkut]

Wow, that is going to be huge.

Obama gets to replace a Conservative stalwart on the bench...

No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe within his last 12 months in office.
I am sure 0bama will abide by this rule....

There is no such rule.

[Berkut]

No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe within his last 12 months in office.
I am sure 0bama will abide by this rule....

This cannot possibly be true. I cannot recall lots of extended periods with empty spots on the Supreme Court and there is certainly nothing in the Constitution demanding that. I am not even sure what the basis for this would be. Obama does not get to nominate the justices during the first 12 months of the next President's administration so why would the opposite apply?

But I willing to concede if there is such a rule, though that strikes me as bizarre.

There isn't of course.

This is just a made up thing so that obstructionist can pretend to stand on something sort of like principle, that 100% of the people claiming it know is completely crass opportunism.

I am always kind of amazed at the human capacity to lie to yourself. I don't really understand that - you know you are full of shit, you know everyone else knows you are full of shit, even the people who are agreeing with you know that you are full of shit, and that their agreement is based on shit, yet it still somehow makes everyone feel better to pretend like the shit is roses.

Bizarre.

[Eddie Teach]

It is certainly an unusual situation. The last time a justice was nominated during a Presidential election year was 1968(and then Congress did nothing and waited for Nixon's appointee). The last time a justice was nominated and confirmed was 1940. I suspect this is because most justices choose to retire early in terms when they know the President who will be appointing their successor.

[The Brain]

Retire early? Bullet train?

[Valmy]

It is certainly an unusual situation. The last time a justice was nominated during a Presidential election year was 1968(and then Congress did nothing and waited for Nixon's appointee). The last time a justice was nominated and confirmed was 1940. I suspect this is because most justices choose to retire early in terms when they know the President who will be appointing their successor.

Huh. I guess that does make sense. Only a minority of the SC justices actually die on the bench right?

[Martinus]

Wow, that is going to be huge.

Obama gets to replace a Conservative stalwart on the bench...

No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe within his last 12 months in office.
I am sure 0bama will abide by this rule....

The SCOTUS blog calls you a liar. Are you a liar or a fool?

The first nomination during an election year in the twentieth century came on March 13, 1912, when  President William Taft (a Republican) nominated Mahlon Pitney to succeed John Marshall Harlan, who died on October 14, 1911.  The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Pitney on March 18, 1912, by a vote of fifty to twenty-six.

President Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat) made two nominations during 1916.  On January 28, 1916, Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis to replace Joseph Rucker Lamar, who died on January 2, 1916; the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Brandeis on June 1, 1916, by a vote of forty-seven to twenty-two.  Charles Evans Hughes resigned from the Court on June 10, 1916 to run (unsuccessfully) for president as a Republican.  On July 14, 1916, Wilson nominated John Clarke to replace him; Clarke was confirmed unanimously ten days later.

On February 15, 1932, President Herbert Hoover (a Republican) nominated Benjamin Cardozo to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes, who retired on January 12, 1932.  A Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Cardozo by a unanimous voice vote on February 24, 1932.

On January 4, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt (a Democrat) nominated Frank Murphy to replace Pierce Butler, who died on November 16, 1939; Murphy was confirmed by a heavily Democratic Senate on January 16, 1940, by a voice vote.

On November 30, 1987, President Ronald Reagan (a Republican) nominated Justice Anthony Kennedy to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Louis Powell.  A Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Kennedy (who followed Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg as nominees for that slot) on February 3, 1988, by a vote of ninety-seven to zero.

In two instances in the twentieth century, presidents were not able to nominate and confirm a successor during an election year.  But neither reflects a practice of leaving a seat open on the Supreme Court until after the election.

On September 7, 1956, Sherman Minton announced his intent to retire in a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he served until October 15, 1956.  With the Senate already adjourned, Eisenhower made a recess appointment of William J. Brennan to the Court shortly thereafter; Brennan was formally nominated to the Court and confirmed in 1957.  The fact that Eisenhower put Brennan on the Court is inconsistent with any tradition of leaving a seat vacant.

And in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Abe Fortas, who was already sitting as an Associate Justice, to succeed Chief Justice Earl Warren, but the Fortas nomination was the target of a bipartisan filibuster – principally in reaction to the Warren Court's liberalism and ethical questions about Fortas, although objections were certainly also made that it was inappropriate to fill the seat in an election year.  That filibuster prompted Homer Thornberry, whom Johnson nominated to succeed Fortas as an Associate Justice, to withdraw his name from consideration in October 1968, because there was no vacancy to fill. Moreover, the failure to confirm Fortas as the Chief Justice did not leave the Court short a Justice, because Chief Justice Earl Warren remained on the bench.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/supreme-court-vacancies-in-presidential-election-years/

[DGuller]

It is certainly an unusual situation. The last time a justice was nominated during a Presidential election year was 1968(and then Congress did nothing and waited for Nixon's appointee). The last time a justice was nominated and confirmed was 1940. I suspect this is because most justices choose to retire early in terms when they know the President who will be appointing their successor.

Huh. I guess that does make sense. Only a minority of the SC justices actually die on the bench right?

In recent time, yes.  In 19th century, dying on the bench was all the rage.

[grumbler]

There isn't of course.

This is just a made up thing so that obstructionist can pretend to stand on something sort of like principle, that 100% of the people claiming it know is completely crass opportunism.

I am always kind of amazed at the human capacity to lie to yourself. I don't really understand that - you know you are full of shit, you know everyone else knows you are full of shit, even the people who are agreeing with you know that you are full of shit, and that their agreement is based on shit, yet it still somehow makes everyone feel better to pretend like the shit is roses.

Bizarre.

I think that Siege knows that his "No American president has EVER appointed a supreme Court dufe [sic] within his last 12 months in office" lie is a lie (Abe Fortas says "hi!").  He just hopes that his readers are gullible enough to swallow the lie.

[derspiess]

There should be a different standard for a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. The president should follow the example of a majority of his predecessors and delay naming a replacement. If he goes forward before then, the Senate should wait to consider the nomination.

Some will criticize such a decision and say that it was nothing more than an attempt to save a seat on the court in hopes that a Republican will be permitted to fill it, but that would not be the Senate Republicans' intention.  It would be their pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over.