Letters to the Editor: Justice Scalia

By Lou Sansevero Ferron Utah

The untimely passing of Justice Scalia both underscores and raises the importance of the November Presidential election by a magnitude of at least ten. Justice Scalia was a strict original intent Constitutionalist, as am I, and as such believed that SCOTUS’ authority as an appellate court on questions of constitutionality was to examine the question based on the original intent of the architects at the time the article or amendment in question was introduced and passed and not to examine it by the standards contemporary with the time the question arises as has been the practice of the court. After this examination it is then SCOTUS’ responsibility to adjudicate the question on the basis of the former not the later; in other words SCOTUS’ responsibility is to clarify the original intent and not to re-interpret, amend nor to expand or to reduce the scope of the article or amendment at question all of which actions would be violations of the intent of Article V.
With the death of a justice. President Obama, or any other President, has the absolute authority to nominate a replacement at any time within his term that a vacancy occurs including during an election year; by the same token the Senate has a corresponding absolute authority and responsibility to consider and consent to or reject a candidate or, as in the case of Justice Scalia’s replacement in this election year, to stall a decision on any candidate until after the election. Whether Mr. Obama likes it or not the Constitution is silent to how long the Senate’s deliberations may take; the tactic of stalling, in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, has been one both parties have used in respect to the confirmation process of federal judges (including Supreme Court Justices) and while Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President the authority to “. . . fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate . . .”, Obama would not be able to utilize this authority since I don’t believe the Senate was in recess on January 12, 2016 when Justice Scalia’s seat on the court was vacated and even if this were not true and the Senate was in recess Article II Section 2 goes on to say “. . . by granting Commissions which shall expire at the end of their next Session.” which would mean any appointment made under this sub-section would not be a life-time appointment but a term limited appointment requiring the whole process to be repeated at the end of the next Senate session.
If you listen carefully and study the debate it becomes clear that this issue is a political/partisan tug of war between the liberal-left and the conservative-right to gerrymand the make-up of the Supreme Court and control the future direction of the United States.
For the sake of the Republic and the Constitution Mr. Obama cannot be permitted to appoint another left-wing liberal Justice to the Supreme Court, such an appointment would skew the court to the left for generations and would surely mean the end of religious freedom, the end of the people’s right to bear arms, the codification of abortion on demand at any stage of a pregnancy; basically Pres. Obama’s and the liberal left’s agenda would be unrestrained in “fundamentally changing” America. It is imperative that the Senate stands strong and exercise its Constitutional prerogative to block any appointment until after January 20, 2017.
If you love America and the Constitution contact your Senator and demand he or she block any replacement for Justice Scalia until after the 2016 Presidential election and contact friends and relatives in other Senatorial districts and ask them to do the same.