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It's been 80 years since the Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee who was nominated during an election. And particularly when the court hangs in the balance, it makes no sense whatsoever to give Barack Obama the power to jam through a judge in the final election year.

Now, President Obama has to make a decision. He can either propose a nominee who can win over the majority in the Senate or defer his choice to the voters, who in November will elect a new President and a new Senate, which will be responsible for confirming a nominee who will provide balance to the Supreme Court.

We need to consider nominations as thoroughly and carefully as the American people deserve. No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

There was a Republican majority of the Senate, and it tempered the nature of the nominations being made.

I realize the voters elected President Obama in 2012, but they also, in 2014, elected enough Republican senators to gain a majority in the Senate, so we control the confirmation process. And these are two supposedly coequal branches of government involved in this filling of a Supreme Court vacancy.

No matter how badly senators want to know things, judicial nominees are limited in what they may discuss. That limitation is real, and it comes from the very nature of what judges do.

Conservative voters increasingly understand that the one legacy a president can leave is his judicial appointments.

Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda.

If you look at the Constitution, the two clauses of the Constitution make it very clear the president shall nominate, and the Senate shall provide advice and consent. It's been since 1888 that a Senate of a different party than the president in the White House confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.

Hillary Clinton will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who are prepared to overturn Citizens United and end the movement toward oligarchy that we are seeing in this country.