Justice Antonin Scalia dead at 79

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Oh my.

https://news.google.com/news/rtc?ncl=dJ ... =0&topic=h

A true hero of the Republic.

The stakes for this election just got bumped a lot higher.

Here's the early New York Times report:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/an ... death.html

My condolences to his family (NINE kids).

I hope they replace him with another conservative. I don't know how they're going to decide anything, until he's replaced----4 / 4 ties will be dismissed. It'll be President Obama's third appointment to SCOTUS.

More from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /80351844/

It is very unlikely that any nominee would be approved before the election, so it will be up to the next president to make the appointment.

His replacement won't be chosen until after the election

If Trump is as politically astute as I think he is, he'll immediately announce that he will appoint Cruz to replace Scalia.

It's never taken more than 6 months to appoint a new supreme court justice.

thats not true at all

try over 2 years

The seat might have been vacant for 2 years, but the time from nomination to a resolution (usually confirmed) has never taken as long as 6 months.

I haven't yet decided if this is:

(1) The biggest development in US politics in more than a decade, or
(2) not very consequential at all

On the one hand, Scalia was the most Conservative member of the Supreme Court, and any successor will likely almost by default be less conservative than him.

... Good luck trying to nominate someone in 2016 who doesn't believe that the 14th Amendment protects against sexual discrimination, or that innocent
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/0 ... 03813.html

On the other hand - as a fringe member - he likely didn't have much influence on the overall trajectory of SCOTUS. Some of the major court victories of the Democrats in recent years were authored by Anthony Kennedy (the Obergefell and Windsor decisions on gay marriage) or John G. Roberts Jr. (the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius and King v. Burwell decisions on Obamacare).

The so-called "Conservative majority" in the Supreme Court is thus less pronounced upon closer inspection.

Regardless, the Democrats will likely push for the nomination of a judge who will overturn Citizens United. Obama, Clinton and Sanders have all been very vocal in their opposition to the ruling. And the GOP will likely face a lot of criticism for holding up a nomination in the Senate, which the Democrats will likely capitalize on in the 2016 presidential election.

And with him a death of gun rights

Bummed out to see him pass, and - at least these days - relatively young.

the one person worse than scalia.

No, Oh-blah-blah will push it, and the whimsy Republicans - who are really closet liberals, will let him.

"Scalia took literally and absolutely some constitutional commandments that other judges and justices try to skirt or re-define in order to achieve what they view as some overriding social or political goal. Scalia prioritized free speech rights, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, protection of the right to trial by jury (despite others’ repeated attempts to cut corners), and, importantly, the obligation of Congress and state legislatures to enact clearly-worded criminal statutes that gave fair warning of what actions (or inactions, for that matter) could land one in prison....

Justice Scalia, more than any other member of the high court during his 30-year tenure, waged war with the government’s attempt to attack the liberty of citizens and others by brandishing laws that nobody really could comprehend. He understood, as few judges do, the extent of the day-to-day tyranny inflicted by any legal system where the laws are not clear as to what conduct can land a citizen in prison. In the 2011 Supreme Court case Sykes v. United States, Justice Scalia articulated this very concern. The majority determined that a particular crime – felony vehicle flight – constituted a “violent felony” under federal law; in practice, this ruling meant that the individual at the heart of the case was subject to a 15-year mandatory minimum prison sentence. Scalia dissented from the majority, arguing that the federal law in question was so vague in defining a “violent felony” that punishing Sykes under it was unconstitutional."

More from the great Harvey Silverglate at:
https://news.wgbh.org/2016/02/15/news/d ... ne-measure

For the technically inclined, here's a very interesting legal symposium on Scalia's legacy:

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/02/1 ... ce-scalia/