Obama To Meet With GOP On Filling SCOTUS Vacancy, Forgetting One Thing
Can you guess what that one thing, which is pretty big, is?
(Reuters) U.S. President Barack Obama will press Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, despite Republican vows to not to act on anyone he nominates.
Obama is slated to speak at 11:30 a.m. EST (1630 GMT) with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley at the White House.
Doesn’t he have to actually nominate someone, first? It’s a rather necessary component in the process.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday that Obama was committed to having a serious discussion with the lawmakers about his “constitutional responsibility” to appoint a successor to Scalia and how he would like to see the process play out.
“We’ll have to see if Republicans are also committed to that kind of serious conversation,” Earnest told reporters at a briefing. “Maybe they won’t be, and if they aren’t, then maybe it will be a shorter-than-expected meeting.”
I hope McConnell and Grassley realize this is, most likely, a setup. Rarely does Obama bother talking with people in Congress, even those in his own party, and, when he does, it tends to be a set up, in one form or another. They should simply tell Obama to go ahead and nominate someone, and leave it at that.
Oh, and if he fails to show up on time, they should walk out.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.