When President Obama came into office with only one Justice over the age of 80, but the next President will come into office with two justices over 80: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 82, and Anthony Kennedy, who is 79, but will be 80 by the time of the election. Additionally there is Stephen Breyer who is not far behind at the age of 77, and of course we still have the vacancy that was left by Scalia. Because of this, the next person who comes into office will likely be responsibly for anywhere from one to four Justices, which could potentially be a major factor in who is elected our next President.
According to Vox, If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is elected and have a Democratic Senate, they will be able to replace Scalia and possibly Kennedy with solidly liberal justices, ushering in a totally new era of Supreme Court jurisprudence that could see decisions like Citizens United overturned. If Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, or Ben Carson get elected, they will not only keep Scalia's seat in conservative hands, they will likely be able to replace Ginsburg and possibly Breyer too, moving the Roberts court even further to the right.
As the highest federal court in the United States, the fact that the next person elected could potentially have a major impact on four of the nine Justices throughout his or her presidency has made this a major issue for the upcoming election.
Justices are all regular people, so naturally they are going to die like all of us; however, there is a layer of mystery in the death of Antonin Scalia. His death was completely sudden and unexpected and there was not an autopsy, so conspiracies immediately were created and began to be thrown around. According to The New Yorker there are numerous theories: Scalia was killed by Barack Obama, or by Rod Blagojevich, or by Hillary Clinton; or, veering to the right corner, by the Bush family, or by Ted Cruz, or by Dick Cheney. Suggested weapons, in addition to the pillow, include carbon monoxide and poison. Where did all this come from?
On a radio talk show, Trump was interview and asked specifically about his thoughts regarding the conspiracies and the death of Scalia. Though he did not directly confirm his stance, he heavily implied that he did not believe that this was a naturally occurring death when he stated "they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow."
The fact that Trump is reading into the conspiracy theories and not addressing the potential that it was purely a death from old age, could be harmful to his campaign. Again and again, he has said that we have “stupid and incompetent people leading our nation” and that “we need to get a lot smarter.”
Some are accrediting Trump's belief in the conspiracies to incompetence. Based on Trump's statements with the media, his only evidence of Scalia's death not being natural is the placement of the pillow, which seems like an irrational indicator of something as extreme as a meticulously planned murder.
The primary goal of this blog is to address how Trump would affect our nation as President based on his stances and the way that he handles situations. However, in this case it just may be too soon to tell. The death of Scalia leads to heavy questioning about the implications of whether out next leader is a Democrat or Republican, not so much which candidate specifically. At the same time, we cannot rule out the small chance that Obama would rush into naming a new Justice before the end of his presidency.
The stakes are huge, and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out and what will happen regarding the Supreme Court.
