Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is continuing to press for no vote on a nominee from pro-abortion President Barack Obama to replace pro-life Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Rubio said after Scalia’s death that the Senate should allow the next president to select a nominee and he reconfirmed his position in a recent interview.
Here’s what he told CNN:
RUBIO: “A couple of things. You talk about the Reagan example, the nomination happened in the seventh year and the confirmation process went into the eighth year. This is a tradition that both parties have lived by for over 80 years where in the last year if there is a vacancy in the last year of a lame duck president, you don’t move forward. The president can nominate someone but the Senate has said we’re not moving forward on it, that the next president should have the opportunity to fill this vacancy.
We’re going to have an election in November. This will be an issue in the election where the candidates will describe the kind of justice they would appointing. I think that will be one of the factors how they make their decision and then the new president can appoint someone and the Senate should move forward on the confirmation process then. I don’t think you should appointing someone to a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land by a lame duck president who is no longer accountable to the American electorate.”
SIGN THE PETITION: Do Not Allow a Vote on Any Obama Supreme Court Nominee
Last year, Rubio talked about the importance of judges.
The pro-life Senator from Florida told David Brody of CBN News that appointing new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court will be “one of the biggest things the next president is going to do.” Rubio said the country needs justices who will put aside their personal feelings about an issue and rule fairly on the Constitution.
“And there is no way that you can read the Constitution and deduce from it that there is constitutional right to an abortion …” Rubio said. “So you need judges that understand how constitutionally flawed that those … rulings and others have been …”
He also said he was concerned about the government compelling people to violate their consciences and their faith.
“[I want to] ensure that we’re not doing anything that at any part in our government that is putting organizations that are motivated by their faith or organized around their faith from having to violate the tenants of their faith and that includes government contractors,” Rubio said. “There are many government contractors and small companies who provide services to the government who are faith-based people, and they are being compelled to sin by government in their business conduct. That is not something we should be supporting.”
