FYI: The first Supreme Court had six justices so we can certainly function with 8. More than this, the Dems opposed Court appointments during last year of a presidency, until now, that is.

Carl Hulse / New York Times: A Supreme Court Seat Sits Empty, and Calls to Fill It Dog Republicans  —  WASHINGTON — As Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah addressed the conservative Federalist Society luncheon on Friday at a Chinatown restaurant, young protesters from the liberal group Generation Progress suddenly broke into loud

 Editor's notes:  there is nothing "divinely ordained" about the number "nine."  BTW,  the GOP is only doing what the Dems would be doing,  if the table was reversed.  Everyone knows it  and that is a matter of record.  

1.   Dems in Senate passed a resolution in 1960 against election year Supreme Court appointments.

2.   NY Times — Senate Republicans on Monday seized on a 1992 speech by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator, in which he argued against any Supreme Court appointment during a presidential campaign, grabbing an early advantage in what is likely to be a protracted battle to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

The vice president’s remarks are unlikely to deter the White House from submitting a nominee in the coming weeks, and Republicans may still face public pressure to allow the confirmation process to go forward, especially if Mr. Obama’s pick is respected and has been confirmed by the Senate to other posts.

Nonetheless, Republicans appeared to take the upper hand in a fight that stands to dominate Capitol Hill for months. The outcome could tilt the ideological balance of the court and reshape American life for generations.

 3.   The White House has a very important announcement about the upcoming political battle over filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by Justice Antonin Scalia: President Obama regrets filibustering Samuel Alito when he was in the Senate. This is probably due to video of him pretty much doing a 180-degree turn on judicial nominations. In 2006, then-Sen. Obama said that he disagreed with the premise that a president’s nomination to the Supreme Court (or any federal court) should be confirmed just because he won an election. Ten years later, he says that blocking judicial nominations isn’t how our system of government is supposed to work. (Source:  Townhall, here).