Sen. Roger Wicker, speaking to the Rotary Club Feb. 16, said that in the modern era we have never had a Supreme Court vacancy filled in a presidential election year. He cites as an example that President Lyndon Johnson was denied his nominee during an election year. Mr. Wicker said this establishes a precedent. However, Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed during President Ronald Reagan’s final year in office.

Interestingly, in the case of Justice Kennedy, the Democrats voted to confirm even though it was a GOP president who nominated him. I guess by Mr. Wicker’s standards, this set an even newer precedent. The Democrats did the constitutionally right thing.

The Republicans once again show themselves to be obstructionists who are more than willing to trample the Constitution in order to deny this president, who was elected by the people, anything!

President Obama has 11 months left in office. It has never taken the Senate more than 125 days to vote on a nominee, so 11 months seems an adequate amount of time to fill the vacancy left by Justice Scalia’s death.

Patricia Van Horn

Oxford