ANTONIN SCALIA - AN IDEA

(This post was held up until after Justice Scalia's funeral)

Off the court, and I guess sometimes on it, Justice Scalia seemed like a affable fellow.  Republicans are hungry for heros* so they are quick to deify him.  They were quick also to say that the seat should be left open for the next president to fill, and I've heard that the Chief Justice has ordered a black cloth to be put over his chair out of respect.**

I've got an idea.  Let's not replace Antonin Scalia and retire his seat on the Supreme Court.  We can have a plaque put on the chair something like " In memory of Antonin Scalia, America's greatest Jurist" or some such superlative.  Better yet lets have a likeness figure made.  Let's see, wax doesn't sound permanent enough as sometimes there are heated discussions on the Supreme Court.  Bronze might be better.

Of course this leaves the Supreme court with only 8 members.  Most decisions are not close so there wouldn't be many ties that would leave the lower court decision intact.  But in cases where the lower court ruling is wildly undemocratic (like Citizen's United that said that corporations are people*** and such), the court would lock at 4 and 4 leaving the lower court ruling intact, just like now isn't it?  So no change from how the court operated while Justice Scalia was still alive, a fitting honor for the late Antonin Scalia.

But Republicans better be careful as there are more Democratic appointed judges than Republican.  Already they have had a case where the Supreme court locked 4 - 4 leaving the lower court decision in tact, but I understand only for that district.

On to the next problem.

* Consider the deified President Ronald Reagan who never came close to balancing a budget and left the government with more employees than he started with (The first president since Lyndon Johnson to do so.).  He had two embassy bombings, each much greater than the Benghazi affair and "cut and ran" when the marine barracks in Lebanan was bombed killing 241 American service men, emboldening terrorists that America would cave in if they were hit hard.  He did achieve an ill considered great reduction in taxes for the wealthy, but once he realized what he had done, he instituted more than 10 tax increases taking back about half of the tax reduction.  But Reagan had a spiritual attraction for Republicans which was what was important, I guess..
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/16/supreme-court-drapes-black-cloth-over-scalias-seat/
*** Just think, the CEO and Chairman of the Board (often the same person) not only gets to make a political donation for themselves but an even larger donation from their company, and they don't even have to tell their owners (stock holders) what they, the stock holders, donated for.