Should U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Vacancy Be Filled As Soon As Possible?

With the U.S. Republican Party’s camp already criticizing Pres. Obama’s plan to fill the vacancy left by Justice Scalia as soon as possible – will Pres. Obama’s decision truly constitutional? 

By: Ringo Bones 

For all intents and purposes, it is indeed constitutionally valid for U.S. President Barrack Obama to find a replacement and fill in the vacancy left by the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at the age of 79. Despite the howls of derision from the talking heads of the U.S. Republican Party that Obama should wait after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election to replace Scalia and the replacement should harbor the same conservative politics as the late Supreme Court Judge’s. Despite President Obama referring Scalia as “a towering legal figure”, most people on the liberal side of America’s political aisle blame Justice Scalia as the reason why America is currently the mess it is in geopolitically. 

Antonin Gregory Scalia became the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States after being appointed into that position by the then U.S. President Ronald Reagan back in September 26, 1986. Since then, Americans of the liberal persuasion had blamed Scalia for virtually all of the problems America is currently in. From repressing women’s reproductive rights to choose, to his “scary” support of the death penalty / capital punishment, Scalia is indeed a thorn in the side of liberal America’s quest for social justice. One of the “scariest Scalia quotes” pertaining to the death penalty / capital punishment goes: “Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.” Many blame Scalia as on of the reasons why the September 11, 2001 Terror Attacks was a relative success because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was too busy wasting their resources and manpower chasing “Christian Terrorists” - i.e. domestic terrorists – mollycoddled by the Evangelical right wing in power which the then Supreme Court Justice Scalia and his ilk has a close kinship. 

Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night - February 12, 2016 – and told friends he wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t get up for breakfast on Saturday morning – February 13, 2016 – and the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him. Scalia’s death during a presidential election year sets up a titanic confirmation tussle over his successor on the U.S. Supreme Court bench. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president’s nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will be made more difficult as the fight over Scalia’s replacement will likely to emerge as a dominant theme of the already contentious 2016 U.S. Presidential Race.