By Katherine Carter
Antonin Scalia, one of the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices, passed away last week on the 13th, and he was hailed as one of the greatest conservative minds of his generation. He is most famous for his appointment to Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by then President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
There is no question to how significantly his appointment to the position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has affected this country and the conservative community. Scalia believed that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in relation to the time that it was originally written, almost 250 years ago. While he didn’t let his religious beliefs get in the way of his job, they had a huge influence on the decisions he made during his tenure as a Supreme Court justice.
His sudden death shocked Americans across the country, and his absence brings up an even bigger issue: who is going to fill that spot as our newest Supreme Court justice?
Considering the significance of this decision, the appointment of our next Supreme Court justice is an even more important issue for America than even the election of our next president. While our next president would remain in office for a maximum of eight years, our next Supreme Court justice will possibly stay until the rest of his or her life.
Bearing in mind how important Scalia was for the conservative community, it will be interesting to see who becomes the next appointed justice. President Obama has expressed interest in appointing the next Justice before he steps down, however, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate are doing their best to keep that from happening. Their fear is that Obama will appoint a liberal Justice, which will obviously make it harder for conservatives to act.
I’m afraid of what this will look like for our country. Hopefully the appointment of the next justice will be given to one who deserves it and does the job justice (no pun intended), but there’s really no telling what will happen. Given this issue on top of the fiasco that is this season’s presidential election, I really just don’t know what to think.
It’s important to have a good mixture of liberal and conservative people in the Supreme Court, so with that in mind, I think the best candidate for the job would be a conservative. With Scalia gone, the Supreme Court consists of three conservatives, one centrist, and three liberals. Adding another conservative to the mix would even things out, especially considering how staunch a conservative Scalia was.
Obviously I’m not a political genius; I’m not even studying political science, but, speaking as someone who cares about this country’s future, I do think it’s important for American citizens to be informed about important issues such as these. This appointment will affect us for many years to come, and it will have a much greater impact on our country than maybe the winner of the presidential election later this year.
For those of you who are believers, I urge you to pray for not only our next president, whoever ends up winning, but also for our newest U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Our country is divided and angry, and if there is ever a time that we need strong leadership, it is now. I pray for wisdom for our nation’s leaders, and that they will do what is right. With this in mind, maybe we can one day be the country that our forefathers intended it to be.
