1. Obama warns high court credibility at stake in nominee fight
2. Obama to meet with GOP leaders on court fight
3. NRA does not trust Obama to nominate a justice who will preserve gun rights
4. Dem senator presses for hearings on high court nominee

A fundamental principle of the U.S. Constitution is division of power – no one branch of the government, much less any individual person, can be allowed to become too powerful.

And that’s why Democrats are wrong when they call on the Republican-led Senate to give blanket approval to President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is leading that charge, however, saying that if Republicans block an Obama nominee, it “would threaten both the Constitution and our democracy itself. It would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that – empty talk.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote in the Washington Post on Tuesday, “Having gridlocked the Senate for years, Republicans now want to gridlock the Supreme Court with a campaign of partisan sabotage aimed at denying the president’s constitutional duty to pick nominees.”

He then thundered, “Pursuing their radical strategy in a quixotic quest to deny the basic fact that the American people elected President Obama – twice – would rank among the most rash and reckless actions in the history of the Senate.”

Even worse, some now say that any Senate rejection of an Obama nominee is racism.

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Solomon Jones said, “The sudden death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has again revealed America’s racial divide on the powers of the Presidency… And in case anyone is unclear on my reasoning, let me be blunt. I believe Obama is being treated this way not just because he is a Democrat, but also because he is black, and the GOP, according to a 2012 Gallup poll, is nearly 90 percent white.”

Now, this much is true – the president has the constitutional duty to nominate a Supreme Court justice. But the Senate does not have the constitutional duty to confirm that nominee.

That’s because of the separation of powers. The Constitution’s framers were far too wise to give the president control over two of the three branches of government. And if the Senate must simply go along with whomever the president chooses, that’s exactly what the president would have.

When he was a senator, Obama himself took this view.

“I believe firmly that the Constitution calls for the Senate to advise and consent,” he said of President George W. Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito. “I believe that it calls for meaningful advice and consent that includes an examination of a judge’s philosophy, ideology and record. And when I examine the philosophy, ideology and record of Samuel Alito, I’m deeply troubled.”

The separation of powers is the only real guarantee we have for the Rule of Law.

“Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate,” Abraham Lincoln once wrote. “The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

The president can nominate, but the Senate can also reject that nomination.