Antonin Scalia dead at 79.

[JWeinCom]

thranx said:

JWeinCom said:

Yeah, actually it's a pretty good reason.  If one side has more seats to lose, than that increases the likelyhood that they'll come out behind.  And again, that's out of only 1/3 of the country.  Plus the seats were mainly located in the south, and fewer incumbents were running from the democrats (incumbents win about 95% of the time or so regardless of party).

So, if you're going to want to throw out the senate approval rating (which is low even by historical standards), then fine.  Just don't throw in something just as meaningless to try and give a reason why the president shouldn't do the job according to the constitution, and why the senate should refuse to do theirs.  When you vote for a senator, you're voting for who should gain the powers of a Senator.  You're not voting to strip the current president of their power.

And the senate has the power to approve or not approve suprem court justice. They should use that power as well. The president can propose who he wants, if the senate does not like them they should not approve them. And voting in a congress that is opposssed to the president is voting to take his powers away. Its the check and balances. We couldnt vote Obama out, but we could vote for people who mitigate his power by not enactiing or writing legislature that he would want. its the whole point of not having a king, but a system of checks and balances.

They absolutely should evaluate the candidates, and judge them on whether or not they think they should be in the supreme court.  I have no issue with that.  But, Senators are saying that they will refuse to accept any nomination.  It's not a case of Senators doing their job in evaluating potential candidates, it is a matter of them not doing there job of evaluating candidates.