SALT LAKE CITY -- The death of the Supreme Court's conservative standard bearer during the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama puts a floodlight on the divisions in American politics.
Republicans and Democrats have only agreed on one thing in the aftermath of the Justice Antonin Scalia's death: Scalia was the strongest, wittiest, most stalwart conservative voice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The floodlight is shining brightly on the Senate's longest serving Republican, and friend of Scalia, Utah's Orrin hatch.
Will the Senate consider an Obama appointee?
“No. We don’t have to,” Hatch told Fox 13 in a live interview on said on Live@4.
Hatch says he supports Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who drew the line against considering an Obama appointee.
“What Mitch McConnell is doing is saying, ‘look let’s get it out of this political realm and push it over to the next president who could be a Democrat or a Republican,’” Hatch said.
Hatch also reflected on Scalia as a friend in the interview.
“He was one of the brightest jurists in the history of the country. He had a tremendous wit. Everybody like him even if they disagreed with him. He was a great professor and an even greater Supreme Court Justice.”
