On February 13, a legacy lost his life. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died of presumably natural causes in his room at a luxury hunting ranch in West Texas. Scalia was appointed by Reagan in 1986 and has since been a force to be reckoned with on the Supreme Court. Scalia was the longest serving member of the Supreme Court at the time of his death. He was only one month shy of serving on the Supreme Court for 30 years. Scalia was known as one of the most conservative Justices, even among the other nominees by Reagan. Scalia was 79.

In the wake of Scalia’s death, we have already found overexcited Republicans and  Democrats and several open questions about current Supreme Court cases. This is due to the Constitutional right of the president to appoint Supreme Court Justices when a Justice resigns or dies in office. Once the president decides on a nominee, he or she must be approved by the Senate before he or she is appointed to the Supreme Court. This act is often the longest lasting act a president can make, as Supreme Court Justices serve on the Supreme Court for life.

Republicans have decided to try to stop Obama from appointing the next Supreme Court Justice at all costs in favor of waiting for the next president to be elected. Senator Ted Cruz, one of the leading candidates in the race for the Republican nomination, has vowed to filibuster any nomination Obama makes for the Supreme Court appointee. This means he intends to force the debate over the nomination to continue indefinitely, which could prevent the vote in the Senate from ever even happening. The process to end a filibuster requires waiting two days, obtaining 16 signatures to try to end debate, wait another two days, obtain the vote of 60 senators to actually end debate, allow 30 more hours of debate, then the final vote can occur. Cruz is planning to use this procedure to stop Obama from appointing the next Supreme Court justice. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, has agreed with Cruz so far, saying the Supreme Court vacancy should “not be filled until we have a new president.” The Republicans want to stop Obama from appointing the next Justice in the hopes that they win the next presidential election so that they can appoint another conservative leaning Justice, similar to Scalia. Marco Rubio, another leading candidate for the Republican nomination, claims to “nominate someone like Antonin Scalia” if he is elected president.

On the other side of the this particular issue, the Democratic party remains in support of Obama to nominate the next Justice. Both Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders, the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, share the view that it is Obama’s Constitutional right to appoint the next Supreme Court Justice. Hillary has used this time to promote her stances on the issues of abortion, immigration, and voting rights, which align with Obama’s policy on those topics. Bernie discussed the partisan tension causing this controversy, and insisting that the court needs a ninth justice as soon as possible in order to process the very important case of the Supreme Court. Missouri’s own senator, Claire McCaskill, also insists that it is Obama’s constitutional right to appoint the next justice, and that right should be upheld. Obama has said he does plan to nominate someone to the Supreme Court in the near future.

I understand the Republican worry about a more liberal Supreme Court Justice. I understand the legacy Obama could create with this next appointee. At the end of the day, Obama is the president right now. He will be the President of the United States over 200 more days. There is no clause in the constitution eliminating the president’s power in his last year in office. The constitution says “he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate… judges of the Supreme Court.” You really do not need to send this case to the Supreme Court to know that this means Obama has the right and the constitutional duty to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court.

The one thing the Republicans do have going for them is the statement Vice President Joe Biden, then Senator Joe Biden, said in 1992 regarding a theoretical vacancy in George H. W. Bush’s last year of presidency. He said, “If someone steps down, I would highly recommend the president not name someone, not send a name up.” this clip has already began circulating through the internet and is actually on some of the first articles to pop up when I Google searched “Biden.” But, the significance of Biden’s 24-year-old statement is not quite that great for several reasons. First of all, Biden was describing a theoretical situation. There was no actual vacancy at the time. Also, Biden released his statement in June, which is significantly later in the presidential race than February. Right now, we are only in the midst of the primaries. There have not been any bipartisan debates as of yet. There is still more than 2 months left until June, and there are 8 months until the election in November. There is plenty of time to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, if the Republican senators like Ted Cruz will actually do their jobs and have a real hearing to determine if President Obama’s appointee is qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.

The Republicans risk quite a lot on this move to prevent the nomination, anyways. If Hillary wins the presidency, she might even nominate Obama himself to the Supreme Court, as she mentioned in January before there was vacancy to fill. The Republicans could not expect anyone better suited for their interests if Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders were to win the presidency. The best option for them right now would be to respect the nomination Obama makes. If it is a bad nomination, then the Senate should determine that independent of their party. The Senate is present in the Constitution to keep the president in check, not to block every move the president makes, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Donald Trump need to respect that.

Several names have already been tossed around as possible nominees for the vacancy, Sri Srinivasam being one them, since he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate as a Circuit Judge in 2013. If every single member of the Senate approved this man, there is no reason for them to block his nomination now. To do so would be unconstitutional and therefore un-American to go back on their vote simply because of their opinions of Obama. It’s pretty ironic, if you think about it, since the nominee will be someone who will interpret the Constitution and maintain its power in the United States of America.