He [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, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
~ from Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution
The text quoted above is direct and straightforward. The salient points of the moment appear in bold font. It never ceases to amaze me that hysterical lefties seem never to have paused in their emotionally overcharged protestations long enough to read the document that undergirds our entire national legal system.
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has ignited a fireball of controversy over whether or not her successor should be appointed now or later. The left's battle cry is "Merrick Garland," the judge who was nominated to the high court by Barack Obama before the end of his second term. In that case, the president was truly a lame duck; he was not running for reelection to his second term. More importantly, while Obama was a Democrat, the Senate held a Republican majority. The president exercised his power under the Constitution; the Senate responded with their own.
The Republican Senate simply advised Obama that there would be no consent for his nominee from the opposition party. Article II, Section 2, was satisfied.
Justice Ginsburg must have realized her time was short. Yet she chose to keep her seat, gambling that she would outlive Election Day. She lost. That's very sad, but it's no reason to hold the workings of our constitutional republic in suspended animation. Her "instructions," as Obama termed her dying wish that her successor be chosen by the next president, bear no weight. Ginsburg seems to have overlooked the very real possibility that Trump will be reelected, leaving the choice of the next justice to sit for more than four years for "the new president," which is not a feasible alternative. Our country has a Constitution that defines what happens next, not a deceased justice and a former president.
President Lincoln described our Constitution as the "frame of silver" surrounding the "apple of gold,"--the Declaration of Independence. That's a poetic way to remind us that the brilliance of our nation's Framers, whose careful construction of the documents was prescient in anticipating constitutional crises, is indeed priceless.
