Reid says Obama will name Scalia replacement in a few weeks
WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Thursday he believes President Barack Obama will nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a little over three weeks.
“I think it will be a little over three weeks,” Reid said in an interview on MSNBC, adding that he spoke to Obama about the nomination on Thursday.
In other developments Thursday:
— Obama will “move promptly” in picking his Supreme Court nomination and has begun to work with senior members of his team on who should replace Scalia, the White House said.
In a daily press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama will consult with a wide variety of people with different viewpoints in making his decision.
“The President certainly wants to move promptly so that the United States Senate can do the same,” Earnest said. The U.S. Senate must approve any Supreme Court nominee.
— Vice President Joe Biden said Obama cannot select the most liberal possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court and should seek a “consensus” pick who could attract Republican support.
A fierce political fight is brewing as the Democratic president prepares to name a successor to Scalia, who died Saturday. Obama’s nominee could change the court’s balance of power. Scalia‘s death left it with four conservative and four liberal justices.
Many Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said the seat should remain vacant until Obama’s successor takes office next January so voters can have a say in the selection when they choose a new president in the Nov. 8 election.
“The Senate gets to have a say,” Biden, a former senator, told Minnesota Public Radio in an interview broadcast Thursday. “In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out, nor would it be his instinct anyway, to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court.”
The Senate, whose Republican majority would be unlikely to embrace any selection seen as particularly liberal, must confirm nominees picked for lifetime appointments to the nation’s highest court.
