No not Diana Ross, the other Supremes, the Supreme Court. Each presidential political season the Supreme Court gets short shrift because the average American does not often feel the impact of a Supreme Court decision on their life. There is nothing farther from the truth for the LGBT community.
The LGBT community fully knows why the Supreme Court matters because they enshrined same-sex marriage as an equal right, potentially changing the lives of gays and lesbians forever. I say potentially forever because a challenge to the Supreme Court same-sex marriage decision could follow the same path as a women’s right to choose; conservatives trying ever more inventive ways to chip away at the affirmed right by creating new laws or taking innovative cases to the Supreme Court. That’s why the Supreme Court matters.
The conservatives in Congress and on the presidential trail are all saying that President Obama should not be allowed to appoint a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. That is absurd. Why would the election cycle prevent the president from fulfilling his constitutional role? It’s his job. Obama is far from a lame duck president. A lame duck president is created when there is a newly elected president after the election occurs in November but before the inauguration in January 2017. There is a lot left to President Obama’s term and he will nominate a new Supreme. I predict that Obama will once again “rope a dope.” The Republicans will attempt to delay the up or down vote on the nomination until the election but they do so at their own peril. The longest confirmation process for a Supreme Court nominee is 125 days, the president has over 300 days left in his term of office. So Obama could nominate several candidates even if the Republican Congress tried to prevent him from selecting Scalia’s replacement.
Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that Obama will not be allowed to appoint Scalia’s replacement. McConnell also said he would ensure that Obama would be a one term president. So much for his credibility.
Obama does have one major problem; who should he nominate. It is likely that the first two nominees may be denied by a Congressional vote, or God forbid, each delayed to 125 days of scrutiny. Who would want to be the first nominee and put themselves and their family through this political circus? The first nominee may be a sacrificial lamb. That means the first likely nominee will be Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She has been through the obstructionist processes of the Republican Party to prevent appointments. Lynch survived and did become attorney general. She might be the only one who could potentially survive being the first nominee and get confirmed, plus she can simply go back to being the top lawyer in the United States government if not approved, no harm, no foul.
I bet the process to select the next Supreme, no matter who is nominated, will be best described by a song by the other Supremes, “You Just Keep Me Hangin’ On.”
STAMPP CORBIN
PUBLISHER
San Diego LGBT Weekly
