WASHINGTON — An epic Washington political battle took shape Sunday after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia as Senate Republicans dug in and said they would refuse to act on any Supreme Court nomination by President Barack Obama. But the White House vowed to select a nominee within weeks.
Multiple Republican senators said they strongly supported the position of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., majority leader, that the high court vacancy should not be filled until after the presidential election, denying Obama a chance to reconfigure the ideological makeup of the court in the last year of his second term.
"I don't see anyone getting confirmed," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, which would consider any nomination. "I suspect that probably means no hearings." Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, both Republican presidential contenders, echoed that view in television appearances.
Despite the deep resistance, the White House was moving ahead but noted that Obama would not immediately announce his court choice.
"Given that the Senate is currently in recess, we don't expect the president to rush this through this week, but instead will do so in due time once the Senate returns from their recess," said Eric Schultz, deputy press secretary.
Administration officials would not discuss a specific timetable for choosing a nominee, though a senior official pointed out that Obama made both his previous Supreme Court nominations — of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — about 30 days after their predecessors announced they were stepping down from the court. Obama faces a complicated calculus in his selection.
"As the president said last night, he takes his constitutional responsibility seriously and will approach this nomination with the time and rigor required," said Schultz.
The stance against even considering a nominee puts Senate Republicans in the politically charged position of defying the president on a crucial court opening in the heat of the presidential campaign — and while also trying to hold on to their majority in the Senate.
Democrats quickly took aim at Republicans, saying that a refusal to even hold a hearing would amount to an outrageous act of obstructionism. Democrats predicted that a backlash from the public, particularly in the swing states where Republicans need to win to hold on to control of the Senate, could eventually prompt reconsideration by McConnell.
"I think there is at least a 50-50 chance that pressure from the Republican Senate caucus will force McConnell to reverse himself and at least hold hearings and a vote," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.
Other Democrats heaped criticism on the Republicans, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who said on Twitter: "Abandoning their Senate duties would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that — empty talk."
Activists and interest groups quickly engaged in the Senate fight. "I have never heard from so many organizations in D.C. and outside who are worried and concerned and want to participate in a campaign," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice. "This is totally different from anything that has happened the past few years. The energy and fear is palpable."
In choosing a nominee, Obama could pick a liberal version of Scalia, which would fire up Democrats but would virtually assure that Republicans would block the nomination in the Senate. Or he could choose a moderate — someone who built a career as a prosecutor or a corporate litigator, with little record on culture-war issues — which could increase pressure on Republicans to allow a vote.
But that could pose other problems. If Obama passes up the opportunity to put forward a liberal in favor of someone who represented corporations, it could provoke sharp criticism from the left. The danger is not just reducing potential voter enthusiasm from Democrats but roiling the Democratic presidential primary.
It was not yet clear which way the president was leaning. But some former White House officials said they would advocate a nominee with a proven record of support in Congress as a way of making it more difficult for Republicans to oppose the nomination.
"There will be many opinions on this, and a lot of good candidates," said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama. "But I would favor sitting appellate judges like Srinivasan or Jane Kelly from the 8th Circuit, who have cleared the Senate unanimously."
Axelrod was referring to Sri Srinivasan, an Indian-American jurist whom Obama named to the U.S. Court of Appeals and who was confirmed by a vote of 97-0 by the Senate in May 2013. Kelly, a former federal public defender in Iowa who was in Obama's class at Harvard Law School, was named to the Court of Appeals by him in 2013. Like Srinivasan, she was confirmed unanimously — in her case, 96-0.
Any nominee for the Supreme Court from Obama would, if blocked by the Senate, become a leading candidate as a Supreme Court nominee of a future Democratic president. Still, Axelrod said he did not expect Obama to consult either Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are running for the Democratic presidential nomination, on his choice.
The shock of Scalia's death and the battle over whether to proceed with a confirmation, which will likely last months, threatened to upend McConnell's careful plans to show the Senate was working again after years of dysfunction. Republicans were eager for a relatively calm year leading into the election, but Scalia's death ended those hopes.
Democrats said that if McConnell persisted in trying to block a nomination, he should anticipate little cooperation from them moving forward, and that they would strive to frame the refusal to act as a radical and unprecedented move.
Democrats also said they would welcome the opportunity to confirm a justice selected by the president because so many crucial decisions are looming. But they said if Republicans dismissed a nominee without a hearing or a vote would influence voters both in the presidential contest and the crucial Senate races in states such as Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire and elsewhere.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the freshman Republican from New Hampshire in a tough re-election fight, was one of the first Republicans to speak out on the vacancy Sunday night on Twitter, backing McConnell.
"We are in the midst of a consequential presidential election year and Americans deserve an opportunity to weigh in given the significant implications this nomination could have for the Supreme Court and our country for decades to come," she said. "I believe the Senate should not move forward with the confirmation process until the American people have spoken by electing a new president."
Republicans said that the fight would energize their voters as well and that they would face a conservative revolt if they did proceed with a nominee. "I think there are a lot of people who would be disappointed if we didn't do this," said Lee, the Utah senator.
Republicans noted that Democrats had their own history of blocking Republican judicial nominations. Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, circulated a video from 2007 when Schumer, in a speech, said Democrats should refuse to confirm any nominee to the court by President George W. Bush — who was then nearing the end of his presidency — as well as future Republican presidents, unless the nominees were sufficiently candid in their confirmation hearings. Schumer was referring to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, who Democrats said were not forthcoming in their answers in the hearings about how they would interpret the law.
For Obama, the prospect of a battle for the ideological soul of the nation's highest court drastically transforms a final year that had been shaping up as an extended exercise in legacy-building.
Carl Hulse reported from Washington, and Mark Landler from Rancho Mirage, Calif. Charlie Savage contributed reporting from Washington.