Top Republicans Are Demanding Senate Block Obama From Nominating Scalia’s Supreme Court Replacement

From Ted Cruz to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, conservatives are insisting President Obama’s constitutional authority be thwarted.

Literally within minutes of news breaking that Senior Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had died, leading Republicans and conservatives began issuing statements insisting President Barack Obama be thwarted from placing another justice on the Supreme Court. 

Second-place Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was among the first.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader, the person who has the most power in this process, issued a statement immediately, effectively blocking any Obama nominee.

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell wrote, apparently ignoring the President Obama won his second term by one of the greatest majorities in decades. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

UPDATE: Breaking: Obama Speaks On Nomination To Replace Scalia

Marco Rubio says the “next president must nominate a justice who will continue Justice Scalia’s unwavering belief in the founding principles that we hold dear.”

The co-founder of The Federalist, a right-wing opinion site, was also among the first to insist on blocking the President’s constitutional authority:

This from a writer for the National Review, a far-right site with a decades-long history of racism and homophobia:

“We owe it to his memory to ensure that he not be replaced by a left-wing #Obama nominee. The next president should pick his successor,” Newt Gingrich says:

Of course, hate group employee Bryan Fischer echoed what many other right wing extremists are saying: 

Far right GOP Congressman Tim Huelskamp:

Buzzfeed’s John Stanton and Tarini Parti minutes ago published a piece predicting “The Senate Is Very Unlikely To Confirm A Scalia Replacement This Year.”

 

Image by Enokson via Flickr and a CC license