By Joe Ragusa

BLOOMINGTON – President Barack Obama is considering his pick for the Supreme Court after the death of judge Antonin Scalia over the weekend.

Several Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and numerous Presidential candidates, have already said that the next President should be in charge of picking the next judge. Retired Illinois State University Professor Bob Bradley said Scalia would’ve hated that.

“One of the things that most irked him on the court was when he felt politics entered Supreme Court decision making,” Scalia said. “You can see that with some of his opinions in regard to their decisions about the Affordable Care Act. He really blasts the court for paying attention to political trends.”

Bradley said the court is now split between four conservative judges and four liberal judges, which creates a problem for several cases the court is expected to consider this year.

“Technically, what it means is that the Supreme Court ends up doing nothing because then, the lower court decision is the one that becomes precedent,” Bradley said. “But it doesn’t have any national impact. It only applies to the individuals directly involved in the case.”

Obama has 11 months left in his presidency. The average time the Senate has taken either rejecting or confirming appointments is 37 days, although that number has nearly doubled since Nixon was president.

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].