Late Friday, February 12th, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in West Texas.  The ranch sits in the Chihuahua Desert, about 15 miles from Mexico and about 150 miles southeast of El Paso. The nearest town is Shafter, Texas.   It has been reported that Scalia died in his sleep of a heart attack.  Because no autopsy was performed, questions have been raised about how exactly he died and the conspiracy around his death, but that is not what I will be highlighting today.

It is not every day, or every year for that matter, that a president has to nominate a judge to take the place of a Superior Court Justice. This case raises even more controversy because the seat needs to be filled in a sitting president’s last year in office. The GOP candidates believe that it should be left up to the next president to fill the seat in the court, while the Obama administration believes it is President Obama’s constitutional duty to replace the late Scalia.

This is a big problem for the Republican party because up until now, with 5 of the 9 seats being held by Republicans.  Justice Scalia was a Republican, so now the court is split with 4 justices from each party and of course the Republicans don’t want to lose power while the Democrats want to take that power into their own hands.

It is expected that President Obama will nominate a moderate to replace him, but even still there is a very big chance Republicans will deny this motion, making this process much harder than it has to be.