Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel of the conservative legal group American Center for Law and Justice, offered a creative interpretation of the Senate’s constitutional duty to provide “advice and consent” on presidential nominations today, saying that the “advice” the Senate should be offering President Obama is not to appoint anybody to the Supreme Court.
Jay Sekulow appeared with Pat Robertson, ACLJ’s founder, on “The 700 Club” this morning to discuss the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the resulting fight over his replacement on the court.
Robertson, sounding somewhat bewildered, noted that one potential Obama nominee for the vacancy, Judge Sri Srinivasan, “is an Indian, he actually was born in India,” concluding that “they shouldn’t rush somebody on” the court until the next president takes office.
Sekulow agreed that Senate Republicans should “just say no” to any Obama nominee.
“The Republicans need to say no,” he insisted. “It’s that simple. Just say no. That’s the way the rules are structured. The Senate has a role in this, the Constitution says ‘advice and consent.’ The advice here is, ‘Don’t put up a nominee when you’re only going to be the president, you’re a lame duck and you’re only going to be the president for 11 months.’”
As well as his questionable claim that Obama is a “lame duck” president months before an election has been held for his replacement, Sekulow falsely claimed that there “hasn’t been a confirmation when there’s been an appointment during an election year since 1880.”
