Why we should care about a Supreme Court vacancy

 Judge Antonin Scalia, the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court at the time, died suddenly on February 13th. Immediately following his death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Congressional Republicans would refuse to consider any Supreme Court nominee Obama appoints, citing the ongoing presidential election. However, as the New York Times shows, there have been several instances where the Senate has considered, and usually confirmed, Supreme Court nominees during an election year.On March 16, about a month after Justice Scalia's death, Obama announced his supreme court nominee: Merrick Garland. Judge Garland, a Harvard law graduate who has served on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997, is certainly well qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. Also, although Garland is certainly liberal and agrees with Obama on most issues, he is more conservative than Obama's other two supreme court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. By nominating Garland, Obama was essentially taunting Republican senators by giving them no legitimate reason to refuse at least holding confirmation hearings.Today, more than a month has passed since Obama nominated Garland and the Senate has still made little to no progress toward holding confirmation hearings, with many Republican senators still refusing to meet with Garland. The Supreme Court has had eight justices rather than nine for two months and counting. However, conversation on the subject at Brown has been relatively silent; many students scoff at the vacancy as another example of how our government is failing.Some even argue the vacancy is good for liberal causes. The court, which had a conservative majority before Scalia's death, now has a four-four tie between liberals and conservatives. In the event that a Supreme Court ruling is tied, the decision by the lower court is upheld. Lower courts tend to have a majority liberal justices. Therefore, they argue that several cases on the 2015-2016 docket are going back down to the lower courts where the opinion is favorable to liberals when the Supreme court ruling would have favored conservatives if Scalia was still alive.Even so, the vacancy is a huge problem that should be getting more attention. I had the chance to ask Professor Schiller her thoughts on the subject. She said that the vacancy is in fact worrisome not because of the number of justices on the court, but because the Senate is refusing to do its constitutional job. This is the first time in the history of Congress that the body has absolutely refused to consider a nominee with almost a year to go until the next Presidential inauguration.Brown students should care that Senators are refusing to do their jobs. Congressional roadblock and inefficiency is threatening other political institutions, and the fact that Senators are refusing one of their fundamental duties to the American people is no partisan joke.Yes, the Supreme court is an unrepresentative institution, that seems very removed from our daily lives. However, the vacancy reflects something much larger about the way our government works. No one, even liberals who are potentially seeing more favorable rulings from the Court, is benefitting from the vacancy. Indeed, it would clearly be better for liberals if Garland was confirmed. We have to hold government accountable and demand elected officials do the their job.The first step toward doing so, Professor Schiller said, is to increase the dismally low voter turnout among our generation.Image via.