US Supreme Court Justice and outspoken conservative Antonin Scalia has died, leaving the high court without its conservative majority and setting up an ideological confrontation over his successor in the maelstrom of a presidential election year. Scalia was 79 years old.
Scalia was found dead on Saturday morning at a private residence in the Big Bend area of West Texas, after he had gone to his room the night before and did not appear for breakfast, US Marshals Service spokesperson Donna Sellers said in Washington.
The cause of death was not immediately known. A gray hearse was seen at the entrance to the Cibolo Creek Ranch, near Shafter, on Saturday accompanied by a sport utility vehicle.
US President Barack Obama on Saturday night said that he would nominate a successor to Scalia, despite calls from Republicans to leave that choice — and the certain political struggle over it — to the next president.
He promised to do so “in due time,” while paying tribute to Scalia as “one of the towering legal figures of our time.”
Scalia’s death most immediately means that that the justices could be split four-four in cases going to the heart of the some of the most divisive issues in the US — such as abortion, affirmative action, immigration policy and more.
Scalia was part of a five-four conservative majority — with one of the five, Justice Anthony Kennedy, sometimes voting with liberals on the court. In a tie vote, the lower court opinion prevails.
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as Republican presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, said the nomination should fall to the next president.
Democrats were outraged at that idea, with US Senator Harry Reid, the chamber’s top Democrat, saying it would be “unprecedented in recent history” for the court to have a vacancy for a year.
Scalia’s impact on the court was muted by his seeming disregard for moderating his views to help build consensus, although he was held in deep affection by his ideological opposites Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan. Scalia and Ginsburg shared a love of opera. He persuaded Kagan to join him on hunting trips.
His 2008 opinion for the court in favor of gun rights drew heavily on the history of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution and was his crowning moment on the bench.
He was in the court’s majority in the 2000 Bush versus Gore decision, which effectively decided the presidential election for Republican candidate George W Bush.
“Get over it,” Scalia would famously say at speaking engagements in the ensuing years whenever the topic arose.
Ginsburg once said that Scalia was “an absolutely charming man, and he can make even the most sober judge laugh.”
She said that she urged her friend to tone down his dissenting opinions “because he’ll be more effective if he is not so polemical. I’m not always successful.”
Scalia was passionate about the death penalty. He wrote for the court when in 1989 it allowed states to use capital punishment for killers who were 16 or 17 when they committed their crimes.
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