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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Iowa's Grassley to Play Key Role in Court Nomination

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Monday, February 15, 2016   

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The death of the U.S. Supreme Court's most consistent conservative voice for 30 years, Justice Antonin Scalia, leaves a crucial vacancy on the court.

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, where hearings on any nominee would be held.

Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, say the seat should remain open for the next president to make the key appointment, but President Obama says he'll nominate a new justice and expects no delay in ratifying the choice.

University of Iowa law professor Todd Pettys says there may be legal justification for the Republicans' stall tactics.

"The Constitution doesn't say anything directly about what the Senate's obligation is to respond promptly," says Pettys. "It doesn't say anything that clearly forbids the Senate from just refusing to act on a president's nomination. And they're free to take politics into account."

He says typically, when the president and Senate majority are from the same political party, the confirmation process can take as little as three or four months. Even when the fight is contentious, as was the case when President Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork in 1987, a new justice is typically seated in less than a year.

Pettys says fights over Supreme Court appointments are relatively recent, dating back only 50 years. Should the GOP not confirm a new justice until next year, he says many close cases won't be decided for some time.

"We're looking at the prospect of something very rare here, because if the Republicans refuse to process President Obama's nominee, it's going to be beyond this time next year before we have that seat filled," says Pettys. "We're talking about possibly a year-and-a-half of work on the court that is affected, in high-profile, closely-divided cases."

He says several pending cases may end up with tie votes, in which case the lower-court decisions remain in effect. He also predicts that a prolonged delay in selecting a new justice could mean fewer appeals in close cases, as litigants won't want to spend the time and resources, only to have the court fail to render a decision.

Pettys thinks Scalia will go down in history as one of the most influential justices of all time.

"Whether someone agrees with him or disagrees with him, you have to see that he has been just highly, highly influential," Pettys says. "He has changed the way the court thinks about many issues. He has changed the way the court thinks about the methodologies that it uses for deciding different cases."

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has ordered flags on public buildings in Iowa to be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset today in Scalia's honor.


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