In Death, Scalia Offers Chance for GOP Leaders’ Redemption

The passing of Justice Antonin Scalia has electrified this fall’s presidential contest. It has also teed-up in the meantime one of the great political slugfests in the U.S. Senate.

At stake is the future of the last effective impediment to presidential overreach. Should the conservative Scalia’s seat be filled by yet another leftist, what remains of the Constitution’s check-and-balance protection against despotism in the Oval Office will disappear.

Mr. Obama will surely nominate a black or Hispanic, hoping to coerce Republican Senators into acting on the appointment this year. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley say the choice will be the next president’s, not the incumbent’s.

If they stick to their guns, the Senate GOP may just earn back enough support from their deeply alienated base to hold their majority in November. If they don’t, fuggedaboutit.