With the passing of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, President Obama is charged by our constitution to nominate a candidate to fill that position. The US Senate is also charged by our constitution to vote on approving or rejecting the nomination.
The Republican leaders in the Senate say they will not even discuss a nominee. They say, “The people should have a say and we should wait until the new President is installed in office in January of 2017.” In all fairness, the Democrats basically said the same thing when Ronald Reagan was president and in his last year of office in 1988.
So, both parties are playing politics. It’s what they are best at. I wish they were best at being leaders, representing the people of their districts and keeping their commitments to the people of this country, as outlined in our constitution, even if it meant doing something they would rather not do.
I understand that a Republican would want to wait and hope that a Republican president was elected and have “their” president nominate a new justice, but the constitution just doesn’t work that way. The people do have a voice in this nomination. “We” elected President Obama to a second term and charged him with upholding the constitution for the full 4 years of his second term. These senators were also elected to fulfill their responsibilities.
Accountability is all about keeping your commitments to people and right now our elected leaders, on both sides of the aisle, could do a better job of keeping those commitments and doing what is best, even if it’s not what they want to do at the moment.
What would happen if anyone else would choose to not do their job?
