Former Supreme Court Justice Says President Obama should Pick Scalia’s Replacement

Sandra Day O'Connor believes that President Barack Obama should be the one to name the Supreme Court justice replacement for Antonin Scalia.

O'Connor, who served on the Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006, spoke about the Republicans' decision to postpone the hearings on a replacement judge nomination until Obama's successor is in office. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) had said shortly after news of Scalia's death surfaced this past Saturday that the Senate would not be holding hearings this year.

"I don't agree," O'Connor said to the Phoenix-based FOX affiliate KSAZ in response to the Senate's decision. "We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it."

O'Connor added that the upcoming presidential election "creates too much talk around the thing that isn't necessary."

The Republican presidential hopefuls have unsurprisingly sided with the Senate's decision.

Marco Rubio, the senator of Florida, said that although he respects O'Connor, he believes that "the Supreme Court can function with eight justices [and that] this is going to be an issue in the campaign."

"I think that hearing would end up very politicized," GOP candidate and Texas senator Ted Cruz said reported by CNN. "I think this is a matter of policy -- that during a lame-duck period, we should not be confirming a Supreme Court nomination."

For the rest of America, a CBS News poll is reporting that the public is split on who should be nominating the next judge. 47 percent of the people stated that Obama should be able to name the nomination where as 46 percent stated that they would prefer that the nomination be made by the next president.

The poll, conducted from Feb. 12 to Feb. 16 reached 2,007 adults from across the nation.