Vox Sentences: What comes after Scalia? Chaos, apparently.

One of the most influential Supreme Court justices of the century has died. The fight to replace him might stall the government for months or longer.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Antonin Scalia, 1936–2016

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead on Saturday of an apparent heart attack. He was 79.

  [Washington Post / Robert Barnes]

• Scalia was one of the most influential justices of the past century — turning the judicial philosophy of constitutional originalism (which reaches judgments through strict interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant at the time of writing the Constitution) from a discredited fringe ideology into one of the most powerful strains in American jurisprudence.

  [The Atlantic / Garrett Epps]

• Scalia's intellectual influence can't be measured only through the opinions he wrote that set Supreme Court precedent. His best writing (and the work he enjoyed the most) was in his dissents — writing for law students and, he hoped, future generations.

  [Los Angeles Times / David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey Jr.]

• Of course, his free-swinging dissent style could lead to him saying things many Americans considered abhorrent, especially on gay rights.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• After his death, many LGBTQ commentators argued that there was no need to mourn a man who had disrespected them for years. Others, like Tom Scocca of Gawker, celebrated that Scalia lost his battle with history.

  [Gawker / Tom Scocca]

• Scalia's reputation as a doctrinaire conservative is generally well-deserved. But he was actually one of the Court's biggest defenders of the civil liberties protections in the Fourth Amendment — something both liberal and conservative justices on the Court can ignore.

  [Cato At Liberty / Jonathan Blanks]

• If you're interested in thinking of Scalia as a human being — an opera fan and friend to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — you should read Ginsburg's tribute to him.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• And if you're a tremendous law geek, you should read the libretto of the opera written about the Scalia/Ginsburg friendship.

  [Journal of Law and the Arts / Derrick Wang]

4-4 Supreme Court, 2016–2017?

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

• President Obama announced Saturday that he plans to nominate a replacement for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. There's a lot of speculation about who he might pick; here's one roundup, complete with betting lines.

  [Above The Law / Joe Patrice]

• But this is likely a moot point. Senate Republicans have essentially promised that no matter who Obama nominates, they will not approve the nomination — on the logic that it should be the next president's job to pick the successor.

  [Sam Stein / Huffington Post]

• This throws the stakes of the 2016 election into relief: All three branches of the federal government will be up for grabs.

  [Huffington Post / Amanda Terkel]

• Because this is the Senate, there's been a lot of bickering about whether this is historically precedented. The short answer is that the Senate definitely can/i> hold up the nomination for a year if it wants to, precedented or not.

  [Washington Post / Amber Phillips]

• That doesn't mean it should. But both Republicans and Democrats are hiding behind procedure to disguise their real arguments: Republicans would like the next president to be a Republican who gets to nominate a Republican justice; Democrats want Obama to nominate someone.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• One thing to consider during this debate: Is it really a good idea to have an unelected board of lawyers wield this level of influence over public policy?

  [The Daily Beast / Jedediah Purdy]

• Until this mess gets resolved, a lot of cases before the Court will end up tied 4-4. That means that in most cases, the court's deicision will be kicked down the road until the ninth justice is seated, then reconsidered.

  [SCOTUSBlog / Tom Goldstein]

• But for at least one case — Obama's climate regulations under the Clean Power Plan, which the Court (including Scalia) suddenly blocked last week — the absence of a ninth member could be very consequential indeed.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

A "mini world war" in Syria

Ghaith Omran/AFP/Getty Images

• Bombs killed at least 50 people in Syria on Monday. Five hospitals, including a children's hospital and a Doctors Without Borders–supported facility, were hit.

  [Reuters / Suleiman al-Khalidi and Lisa Barrington]

• The UN and the State Department both condemned the bombings, without specifically blaming either Bashar al-Assad's forces or Russia. But the State Department did say the bombing "casts doubt on Russia's willingness and/or ability" to prevent atrocities.

  [AFP / Rana Moussaoui and Andre Viollaz]

• Even if these airstrikes weren't Russia's doing, Putin's forces have been doing a lot of killing. More Syrian civilians were killed by Russia in January than by either Assad's forces or ISIS.

  [Newsweek / Damien Sharkov]

• Russia's objective is to get Assad into a stronger negotiating position so he can dictate the terms of a ceasefire.

  [AP / Vladimir Isachenkov]

• President Obama is worried. He called Putin on Sunday and asked him to stop bombing areas held by "moderate" Syrian rebels.

  [CNN / Kevin Liptak]

• But on the ground, it already looks like Syria is in the midst of a "mini world war."

  [Washington Post / Liz Sly]

MISCELLANEOUS

One reason for Sweden's generous welfare state: Huge numbers of Swedes were emigrating to America, and something had to change to get them to stay. [World Bank / Mounir Karadja]

• A new paper finds a surprising (partial) explanation of why obesity is more common among poor people than the rich: Growing up hungry messes up your ability to only eat when you have to.

  [Washington Post / Roberto Ferdman]

• In 1997, several pyramid schemes in Albania, in which at least 2 million of the nation's 3.5 million people had invested, failed. The result was a state of anarchy in which the government lost control of the south, huge numbers of soldiers and police deserted, 1 million weapons were looted from government, and 2,000 people were killed in the ensuing violence.

  [IMF / Christopher Jarvis]

• Headline: "Find Out What Prince George Is Called at Preschool" Second paragraph: "The 2-year-old royal is known simply as 'George' among his classmates and teachers, a royal source confirms."

  [Yahoo!]

• Political scientists have learned a lot about civil wars in recent years. None of it gives much reason for hope about Syria.

  [Boston Globe / Thanassis Cambanis]

VERBATIM

"Justin Bieber makes eye contact like a person who has been told that eye contact is very, very important. He can be difficult to talk to in other ways, too. He generally does not respond to irony. He speaks more quietly than a mouse that’s asleep, so you frequently have to ask him to repeat things." [GQ / Caity Weaver]

• "There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement and watch his entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance. I wanted him to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to him, ‘Oh, Harvey, you thoughtless little pig.’ He is a festering boil on the anus of American media."

  [Alec Baldwin to New Yorker / Nicholas Schmidle]

• "If we broke up the big banks tomorrow — and I will, if they deserve it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will — would that end racism? Would that end sexism?"

  [Hillary Clinton via Washington Post / Dave Weigel]

• "One recent study of Americans’ perception of consensual non-monogamy found that we think people who are monogamous are better at paying their taxes on time, walking their dogs, flossing their teeth."

  [Fusion / Molly Osberg]

• "We either write our appropriations bills to be completely acceptable to the Senate Democrats and thereby enrage the Republican base, or we allow the Senate Democrats silently and stealthily to shut the government down and allow Republicans to take the full brunt of the blame for it. Those are our two options. That is not a paradigm that we can survive in."

  [Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) to Roll Call / Lindsey McPherson]

WATCH THIS

How the heart became ♥ [YouTube / Sarah Turbin, Amanda Northrop, and Yvonne Leow]

Vox

Contributions are a key part of the future of Vox

Readers rely on Vox for clear, nuanced coverage that not only illuminates the issues, but poses solutions, too. And we rely on help from our readers: Advertising and grants cover the majority of our costs, but we count on contributions to help us close the gaps in our budget. In fact, we’re looking to reach 95,000 individual contributions before the end of the year. Will you make the next contribution right now? Our average gift is just $20 — and it goes a long way in helping us keep our work free. Vox is here to help everyone understand what’s shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. Join that mission by making a contribution today.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via