I. The Death of Scalia: Which Poison with the GOP Pick?.
The sudden passing of Justice Scalia will change the composition of the court. The most likely outcome is that President Obama will name a replacement, that replacement will get confirmed and he or she will take the bench sometime this summer. But of course the Republican party is taking another approach. They claim that the vacancy should be filled not by the current president but by the next one. I may be overestimating them, but I think this is a bluff. Let's consider both scenarios.
A. Obama Names the Next Justice.
Barack Obama will nominate a judge in the next few weeks. He will do so knowing that the senate is controlled by the Republicans and that the Republicans are trying to run out the clock on the last year of his presidency. So he will have to pick someone that is mainstream. He will be tempted to choose someone who Republicans will look silly for attempting to block.
The first name to become a focus of speculation is Judge Sri Srinivasan. He would be an interesting tactical choice for President Obama. First, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a Reagan appointee. Secondly he was confirmed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by the Senate in 2012 by a vote of 97-0. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were both among the senators who voted for him. Lastly, he would be the first Indian justice on the Supreme Court. Another similarly situated contender is Judge Jane Kelley. She was a classmate of the President at Harvard Law School and was unanimously voted to the 8th circuit judge, 96-0 to 2013. Jane Kelly is also an Iowan which could make the decision to not hearings thorny for the Judiciary chair, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for obvious reasons.
So Barack Obama will soon have the ability to put forth a centrist judge with impeccable credentials who very recently sailed through the Senate on unanimous confirmation votes. This candidate might be a minority or female. There will be enormous pressure on the Republicans to at least hold hearings. (If only because the media loves these hearings and so do senators. There's no better way to get face time on the nightly news.) If the hearings fail to produce any bomb shells from the nominee's past, then it will be hard for the senate to vote them down without looking like partisan hacks. But that might be a price they are willing to pay.
B. The GOP Obstructs the Nominee.
The GOP will see things quite differently. Their presidential candidates all agreed that no vote should take place on the very principled reason that the President is in his last year and they do not like him. The moderator of last night's debate had to correct Ted Cruz' false claim that it had been 80 years since a Supreme Court Justice was confirmed in an election year. (Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in February, 1988.) Mitch McConnell the senate majority leader quickly said that no vote should be held this year.
Liberals on social media erupted in derision. This morning's Sunday news shows were filled with Democrats mocking the idea and warning about a 15 or 16 month vacancy on the court. But the Republicans are probably just bluffing. Unlike a lot of Democrats they know that the best way to start a negotiation is by being completely unreasonable and obstinate. That way when they eventually do what they pretty much had to do anyway, they look like they are being magnanimous.
If the Republicans are serious about obstructing this nomination than they will put the issue right at the heart of the campaign. The Democratic nominee will have a brown and or female face to point to and say "See, the Republicans just want to obstruct. They can not be reasoned with. And oh yeah, their real goal is to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Do you want that?"
This is a political loser for them. It will all but guarantee a democratic win and might just cost them the senate. Then 11 months from now President Clinton, Sanders or Warren can appoint almost anyone and get it through the Senate.
So my prediction is this: Obama nominates a candidate the first week of March. The GOP huffs and puffs about holding hearings, but they will give in on that when the politics of this become clearer. They will still try to slow walk it and maybe get to the August recess without a vote but when the Supreme Court begins its new term in October, there will be nine judges on it and William Kennedy's reign as the 2nd most important person on Earth will officially be over.
II. WWE Winter Slam.
Last night's Republican debate in Greenville, SC was a half dozen men mostly screaming at each other with one nearly silent black guy off to the side and one obnoxious accent from Queens dominating the proceedings. This was a much more fitting to tribute to Antonin Scalia than the moment of silence they held to open the night's events.
The most significant line of attack was, of course from Donald Trump. He openly accused George W. Bush of lying about WMD in Iraq and of failing to keep America safe on 9/11. These are not controversial thoughts in most places, but the room was packed with Rubio and Bush supporters who loudly booed him. This of course gave him the best chance to do his Bobby the Brain Hennan act and insult the crowd for being a bunch of dullards in the pocket of his rivals.
I think his real motivation was to boost up Jeb Bush as the expense of Ted Cruz. Trump knows he's going to win SC and he wants to run up the score on the most likely 2nd place finisher. As for Cruz he got baited into speaking Spanish by Marco Rubio in the one moment that suggested maybe Rubio learned something from his disaster in New Hampshire. (For the rest of the night Rubio kept repeating his stupid scripted talking points. I am not optimistic about his future this year.)
John Kasich might be the biggest beneficiary of it all. He stayed above the fray and coolly pointed out how silly the others were. Jeb couldn't help but take some offense at things said about his family. That will earn him some sympathy but not much in the way of actual votes.
The predictions markets didn't move that much. Trump and Rubio each gained 2 points, which came at the expense of Cruz who lost 4. Kasich went from 2 to 3 percent, which was offset by Bush sliding from 12 to 11 percent.
Updated Two-Step Predict Wise Market.
(Election Column reflects the party's chance of winning the election. The "President" column multiplies their shot at the nomination by their party's chance of winning the general election.)
The lower half of the chart lists the probabilities of the general election match-ups. (From Clinton vs. Trump, which is 41% chance to Sanders vs. Kasich, which is 200 to 1 shot at the moment.)
| Candidate | Nomination | Election | President |
| Clinton | 83.0% | 61.0% | 50.6% |
| Trump | 49.0% | 39.0% | 19.1% |
| Sanders | 17.0% | 61.0% | 10.4% |
| Rubio | 24.0% | 39.0% | 9.4% |
| Cruz | 12.0% | 39.0% | 4.7% |
| Bush | 11.0% | 39.0% | 4.3% |
| Kasich | 3.0% | 39.0% | 1.2% |
| Match-up | Probabilities | ||
| Clinton | Trump | 40.7% | |
| Clinton | Rubio | 19.9% | |
| Sanders | Trump | 8.3% | |
| Sanders | Rubio | 4.1% | |
| Clinton | Cruz | 10.0% | |
| Sanders | Cruz | 2.0% | |
| Clinton | Bush | 9.1% | |
| Sanders | Bush | 1.9% | |
| Clinton | Kasich | 2.5% | |
| Sanders | Kasich | 0.5% |
