Reid condemns GOP plans to hold up any Obama nomination to high court — VIDEO
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid took aim Tuesday at the Republicans' plans to block a Supreme Court justice nomination by President Barack Obama.
"We're going to continue to move forward letting the American people know that these people who are always talking about the Constitution should follow it," the Nevada Democrat said.
"They're saying they're not going to allow us to do anything. They've already tried to ruin the legislative branch and they've done a pretty good job with their obstruction," he said. "Now they're switching to the judicial branch and trying to kill that with obstruction. That's wrong."
Reid said he has spoken to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough "maybe a half dozen times" about the issue but not directly to Obama.
He said he suggested "a number of names" to White House officials to replace Justice Antonin Scalia who died Saturday in Texas at age 79. "But they're going to pick somebody I'm sure that will be good." Reid didn't reveal any of the names he offered.
Reid responded to questions from the Las Vegas Review-Journal after speaking at a dedication ceremony for a new solar-power project at Nellis Air Force Base.
Scalia was a conservative justice and the first Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and approved by a 98-0 vote in the Senate after a brief debate.
In an op-ed article in The Washington Post on Tuesday, Reid wrote that the Republicans' intention to block Obama's next Supreme Court nominee puts the United States on a course to enter "uncharted waters in the history of the U.S. system of checks and balances, with potentially momentous consequences."
For 200 years the system has worked with the Senate confirming Supreme Court nominees in both election years and in the last year of a presidency, he noted.
"Until now, even through all the partisan battles of recent decades, the Senate's constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president's Supreme Court nominee has remained inviolable," Reid wrote. "This Republican Senate would be the first in history to abdicate that vital duty."
Reid referred to his op-ed while talking to reporters at Nellis Air Force Base.
When asked whether he'd be willing to shut down the Senate agenda in an effort to proceed with discussion of a Supreme Court nominee, Reid said: "Well that pretty easy to do because Republicans are doing nothing anyway. There's nothing to shut down."
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., didn't respond to requests for comment Tuesday on the growing controversy over the vacancy created by Scalia's death.
Review-Journal Washington Bureau writer Jim Myers contributed to this report.
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2
