GOP candidates urge Senate to block Obama’s Supreme Court pick

All six candidates for the Republican presidential nomination urged the Senate to block President Obama’s expected replacement for the newly vacant Supreme Court seat. They also heaped praise on Antonin Scalia, the conservative firebrand who died Saturday in Texas at 79.

“The Senate needs to stand strong and say, ‘We’re not going to give up the Supreme Court for a generation by allowing Barack Obama to make one more liberal appointee,” Sen. Ted Cruz, who is on the Judiciary Committee, said to applause. He pointed out that no justice has been confirmed during a president’s final year in office in 80 years.

Frontrunner Donald Trump said he hoped the Senate would use the tactic of “delay, delay, delay” until the election. “This is a tremendous blow to conservatives, it’s a tremendous blow to, frankly, our country,” Trump added.

Sen. Marco Rubio praised Scalia’s scathing dissent in the decision that legalized same-sex marriage and called his death a tremendous loss.

“We need to put people on the bench who understand that the Constitution is not a living and breathing document — it is to be interpreted how it was originally meant,” Rubio said.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush also weighed in against Obama’s right to replace Scalia.

“I believe the president should not move forward, and we ought to let the next president decide who is going to run that Supreme Court,” Kasich said.

The unanimity on the question suggests Obama will face united Republican opposition to any attempt to replace Scalia and that the Supreme Court will be operating with a man down for the rest of the term.