Hey Cruz, Trump and Rubio: The Constitution Says There's One President at a Time. His Name Is Barack Obama

Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and, if anyone's still interested, Ben Carson all think that Barack Obama should not be allowed to nominate a replacement for recently departed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, they believe that the "next president" should be the one to do so. This appears to be the collective position of the Republican party. Given that this same party also decided -- on the night he was inaugurated -- that they would seek to prevent Barack Obama from enacting any legislation whatsoever, we can at least say that they are consistent.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the Republican position on Supreme Court nominations, so I decided to take a look at our country's Constitution, to see what it says about the process. Specifically, I wanted to see what duties and responsibilities it assigned to the office that Senators Cruz and Rubio were talking about -- Mr. or Madam Next President. Here's what I found:

The only thing I did find on this matter was in Section 2:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.

Nothing about this Next President guy or gal whatsoever. It seems--according to the Constitution--that we have only one president at a time. That person is Barack Obama. So, sorry, Republicans, he's the one who gets to nominate Justice Scalia's replacement.