The strong arm of constitutional law should prevail in Supreme Court nomination.

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• published: 28 Feb 2016
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http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-strong-arm-of-constitutional-law-should-prevail-in-supreme-court-nomination/ The strong arm of constitutional law should prevail in Supreme Court nomination. The president is elected for a four-year term under Article II of the Constitution. There is no clause or amendment diminishing the president’s duties or powers in the last year. AS former U.S. attorneys in diverse districts that are home to more than 20 million Americans, we urge that the president promptly nominate, and the Senate promptly consider, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Both the plain language of the Constitution and plain truths regarding public safety and national security demand that result. Unsettled legal questions regarding search and seizure, digital privacy and federal sentencing are either pending before the Supreme Court or headed there. It is unfair and unsafe to expect good federal agents, police and prosecutors to spend more than a year guessing whether or not their actions will hold up in court. It is unfair to expect citizens whose rights and liberties are at stake to wait for answers while their homes, emails, cellphones, records and activities are investigated. Equally important, as practicing lawyers and former public officials committed to the Constitution and the rule of law, it is simply incredible to us that anyone who claims fidelity to those ideas can argue that either the president or the Senate should not fulfill their duties. We should be clear on what those duties are: Announcing ahead of time that the Senate will reject any nominee, or refusing to hold fair hearings, does not fulfill the Senate’s duty to provide “advice and consent” on Supreme Court nominees. The “advice,” called for in the Constitution, does not include, “Just forget it, Mr. President.” It is ironic that the arguments being made by those urging a year-plus delay are precisely the types of arguments that former Justice Scalia abhorred. They are based on politics and some vague and hotly contested notions of Senate “interpretations” of the Constitution. As U.S. attorneys, we were constantly assessing the strength of constitutional and other legal arguments being made to courts. There was no more demanding jurist than Justice Scalia when it came to supporting those arguments with actual written law. One argument is based on the so-called “Thurmond rule,” named for the former senator from South Carolina, which calls for no confirmations in the final months of a president’s term. But this “rule” has never been applied to the Supreme Court and it finds no home whatsoever in the text of the Constitution that Justice Scalia so revered. Ignoring the words of the Constitution in favor of an antiqued interpretation seems like a weak case, when real-world problems are so pressing. Suffice it to say, we all would have bought tickets to see Justice Scalia question a lawyer who dared to raise an argument like that! Few things in the Constitution seem as unambiguous as term length. Visit CHAOS View Archive For More CHAOS NEWS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUiFq-IUU64l62ygPdbVnIA