oh oh.....not appointing a replacement for Scalia bites Republicans in the asz

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/public-employee-unions-dodge-a-high-court-bullet/ar-BBr5awV?li=BBnb7Kz

Ridiculous... the obama appointee would've simply made it a majority. You're turning into quite the leftist spin meister.

PkrBum is 100% correct, 2seaoat is, once again, wrong.

Once a conservative is appointed to the court in 2017, these tied decisions more likely that identical cases will be sent up to the court.

What a shame the courts are dictated by politics.

This Supreme Court even with Scalia actually was not guided that much by politcs. Roberts made a courageous and correct opinion on the Affordable Care Act, and he did that from a basis of law, not politics. We are blessed with a system which ebbs and flows, and stupid never has the floor for very long. However, this union case was huge..........I happen to be more conservative than anybody on this forum in regard to my opinions on public unions.....and I do not know for sure that President Obama's current appointee might not have surprised some folks. However, I think when Hillary wins the Republican plan is going to be to confirm the President's nominee, but I suspect he may actually withdraw the nominee and say now that Hillary has been elected he feels uncomfortable not letting the new President make the nomination. Too funny as the turtle will retract his head into his shell as most certainly he will no longer be having much to say in a democratically controlled senate in January of 2017.

Joanimaroni wrote:What a shame the courts are dictated by politics.

Yes, it is...a damn shame:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/ginni-thomas-groundswell-conflict-interest



"Virginia "Ginni" Thomas is no ordinary Supreme Court spouse. Unlike Maureen Scalia, mother of nine, or the late Martin Ginsburg, mild-mannered tax law professor who was good in the kitchen, Thomas came from the world of bare-knuckled partisan politics. Over the years, she has enmeshed herself ever more deeply in the world of political advocacy—all the while creating a heap of conflict of interest concerns surrounding her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Her role in Groundswell, the coalition of conservatives waging a "30 front war" against progressives and the GOP establishment that was revealed by Mother Jones on Thursday, revives questions about the propriety of Thomas' activism on issues that have or could become the subject of Supreme Court cases.

Conflict of interest issues were first aired during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings in 1991, when critics argued that Ginni Thomas' political work might compromise her husband's objectivity. At that time, her political resume included stints as a Capitol Hill aide to a Republican congressman; a staffer at the US Chamber of Commerce, where she fought the Family and Medical Leave Act; and as a political appointee at the Labor Department during the first Bush administration. Thomas didn't leave politics after her husband was confirmed. "I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court," she has said in the past. She would later return to the Hill as a staffer to House majority leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) and work for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank. But in those jobs, Thomas kept a relatively low profile.

That changed around the same time that the tea party exploded in American politics, and Thomas became an outspoken member of the movement. In late 2009, Thomas founded the political advocacy group Liberty Central, which would later become a fierce player in the opposition to health care form. Detractors pointed out that Liberty Central was a potential vehicle for people with interests before the Supreme Court to make anonymous donations that might influence her husband.

The group was formed with a $500,000 anonymous donation that came as the Supreme Court was considering Citizens United, a case that ultimately resulted in loosening the restrictions on corporate giving to political campaigns. The anonymous donor was later revealed to be Harlan Crow, the Texas real estate developer. Crow was also a friend of Clarence Thomas', and he was later linked to a scandal involving the justice's failure to publicly disclose gifts from the developer and trips aboard his private jet. (It didn't help that Justice Thomas had also failed to include his wife's $150,000 annual salary from Liberty Central on his financial disclosure forms, which he later had to amend.) In January 2011, the good-government group Common Cause asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Justice Thomas should have recused himself from Citizens United based on his wife's role at Liberty Central. (Common Cause also asked the IRS to revoke Liberty Central's nonprofit status. Nothing came of either request.)..."