What Scalia's Passing Means for Presidential Race, Supreme Court

WASHINGTON – As Justice Antonin Scalia's family and the nation prepare to lay him to rest, a judicial jostle has already begun in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Scalia was a conservative hero driven by his Catholic faith and trust in the Constitution. His death during a presidential election year adds a new layer of importance to the race.

The 2016 candidates are already drawing lines, saying President Barack Obama shouldn't nominate a Supreme Court judge in an election year - and that the Republican Senate should not confirm one.

"Barack Obama would ram down our throat a liberal justice," Sen. Marco Rubio predicted during Saturday night's GOP debate.

"It's up to Mitch McConnell and everybody else to stop it," Donald Trump said. "It's called delay, delay, delay."
    
Despite his lame duck status, the president says it's his duty to name a new justice.

"I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time," he vowed.
 
It's a plan Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders support.

"It is a job for the president of the United States to appoint, nominate members to the Supreme Court and the Senate confirms," Sanders said.

Clinton agreed noting, "Barack Obama is president of the United States until January 20, 2017."

Faith leaders react to Scalia's death. Watch below:

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the Senate will not confirm the president's nominee and instead wait to consider whoever Obama's successor nominates.
    
Scalia's death sets up a referendum in this election on the future direction of the Supreme Court. And with three justices over the age of 75, it's likely the next president will fill other vacancies during his or her tenure in the White House.

Both sides agree that the man appointed to the court nearly three decades ago by President Ronald Reagan was brilliant, larger than life and perhaps the most important justice of his era.

"His impact on the court was incomparable," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. "As Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so Justice Scalia was to the court."
    
His example of judicial conservatism survives, along with his legal interpretation that uses the meaning of the words of the constitution at the time they were written by the founders.
    
His writings on the high court were admired by the greatest legal minds and ordinary Americans -- like when he accused his colleagues of engaging in "interpretive jiggery-pokery" when they ruled in favor of Obamacare.
    
Scalia also held fast to his devout Catholic faith.

"He was a man of deep, personal Christian faith," Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the Christian outreach ministry Faith and Action, said.
    
Now without him, the court will confront a heavy load this year - in cases that could result in a 4-4 tie.

"Some of the most important cases we're facing as a nation are before this court this term: religious freedom, abortion, immigration," said Rev. Patrick Mahoney, pastor of Church on the Hill and director of the Christian Defense Coalition.
     
Scalia, known as Nino to family and friends, leaves behind his wife Maureen, nine children, many grandchildren and a mountain of judicial and legal legacy.