President Barack Obama is moving forward with plans to fulfill his “constitutional duty” to replace late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the White House told reporters on Friday.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during his daily media briefing that Obama has telephoned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to tell them he expects them to fulfill their “constitutional obligation” in voting for a replacement.
McConnell and Grassley have emerged as two of the loudest voices calling on the Senate to wait until after the next president is elected to confirm someone to fill Scalia’s seat. On Friday, the pair published an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing that “the American people” should be able to weigh in on the next SCOTUS justice instead of a “lame duck President.”
But Obama seems to be moving right ahead with the process even as he tries to assuage the concerns of his detractors in the Republican Party. As Earnest noted, both Grassley and McConnell voted to confirm Justice Anthony Kennedy in the final year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
“There is a clear precedent here,” Earnest said.
The White House spokesman urged Republican senators to avoid turning a constitutional matter into a partisan fight and asked them to evaluate future nominees on their individual merits.
“The criteria that senators use when evaluating presidential nominees to the court is not evaluating whether or not they would have picked this person,” Earnest said. “Their responsibility is to evaluate whether or not this is an individual who can serve the country with honor and distinction in a lifetime appointment.”
Though he insisted there is no “short list” of possible nominees, Earnest said the President has started to “dig into the material” on potential candidates that his team has prepared for him.
Earnest declined to give a specific timeline for when Obama will announce his selection.
