INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Public Demands Senate #DoYour Job

By Susan Macdonald
Published on: 12:53 PST, Feb 25, 2016

#DoYourJob is the hashtag that angry citizens are tweeting to the Senate. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would not consider any nominee proposed by President Obama. The Atlantic explained that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by McConnell, agreed not to hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee that President Obama might suggest. If they keep this promise, the Supreme Court will be forced to function with only eight justices instead of nine for almost a year.

It is the president’s constitutional right and responsibility to nominate a replacement for the late Antonin Scalia. The senate has the duty to advice the president upon this nomination and then either consent or decline his nomination.

According to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.”

Many Americans see the senators’ insistence on waiting for the 45th president of the United States, whomever he or she may be, to nominate the next Supreme Court justice not as a matter of principle, but as partisan obstructionism gone overboard. Many citizens consider it irresponsible, and they’re taking to Facebook and Twitter to demand that the senate #DoYourJob.

As the graph below shows, over half of the American citizens polled believe that the senate should do their job and hold confirmation hearings for whomever President Obama nominates. Nearly three-tenths of Republicans polled and a quarter of self-identified conservative Republicans agreed. Over three-quarters of Democrats and an overwhelming majority of liberal Democrats agreed. For political independents, over half of those polled agreed that the senate should do their job and at least grant a hearing to President Obama’s nominee.

ThinkProgress explained that the late Justice Scalia would have been one of the first to disapprove of the senate’s failure to do the job for which they were elected. When it was suggested that he recuse himself from a case where he was personal friends with one of the parties involved, Scalia refused.

“The petitioner needs five votes to overturn the judgment below, and it makes no difference whether the needed fifth vote is missing because it has been cast for the other side, or because it has not been cast at all.”

McConnell and his colleagues are not refusing to deny a specific judicial candidate a seat on the Supreme Court. They are refusing to confirm or deny anyone nominated by President Obama. They are refusing to even consider the merits of any judge selected by the president. Senators are paid $174,000, plus benefits and expenses. For a salary of that size, the American people have a right to expect them to do their job.

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has accused his colleagues of letting politics getting ahead of doing the job for which they were elected.

Justice delayed is justice denied. The Supreme Court needs a ninth justice before January 20, 2017. The Constitution expects, and the American people demand, that senators do the job to which they were elected. Ladies and gentlemen of the senate, #DoYourJob.

[Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images]

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