Rubio: ‘ I Do Not Believe the President Should Appoint Someone’ for SCOTUS

DICKERSON: "Senator Rubio— ( applause ) Senator Rubio, you’re a lawyer. Quickly, can you address the issue of whether the constitution tells us who has the power to appoint supreme court justices? And then, also, the Senate Republicans last year floated an idea of removing the filibuster for Senate— excuse me, for supreme court nominations. You seemed open to that. What’s your feeling on that now?"
RUBIO: "Let me first talk about justice Scalia. The loss is is tremendous and obviously our exphaerts prayers go out to his family. He will go down as one of the great justices in the history of this republic. You talk about somebody who defended the original meaning of the constitution, who understood that the constitution was not there to be interpreted based on the fads of the moment, but it was there to be interpreted according to its original meaning. Justice Scalia understood that better than anyone in the history of this republic. His dissent on the independent counsel case is a brilliant piece of jurist work and his dissent on oberrer felled. I do not believe the president should appoint someone. It’s been over 80 years since a lame duck president has appoint a supreme court justice. And it remind of us this— how important this election is. Someone on this stage will get to choose the balance of the supreme court, and it will begin by filling this vacancy that’s there now, and we need to put people on the bench that understand the constitution is not a living and breathing document. It is to be interpreted as originally meant."
DICKERSON: "Quickly, though on the question— ( applause ) Very quickly, senator, on this specific question, though. You were once in favor of dropping the threshold—"
RUBIO: "That’s not accurate."
DICKERSON: "You were never in favor of that."
RUBIO: "For example, today, according to the changes Harry Reid made, appellate judges can now be appointed by simple majority, but not supreme court justices and today I think you see the wisdom of why we don’t that want to change. Because if that were the case and we were not in charge of the Senate Harry expreed Barack Obama would ram down our throat a liberal justice, like the ones Barack Obama has imposed on us already."