The firestorm that has followed the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia swept through the Colorado Legislature on Tuesday, sucking up oxygen in dueling press conferences held by Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Gunbarrel.

Indeed, the storm came despite the fact that Cadman and Hullinghorst both attempted to play down any relevance the growing fight to fill the vacancy left by Scalia might have to state Capitol business.

Responding to questions from members of the media in the afternoon, Hullinghorst said the House wouldn’t be sending any resolutions to Congress on the matter.

“I for one am not terribly fond of sending letters to Santa Claus,” Hullinghorst said. “That’s what I call them when we do memos to Congress on any subject that the state doesn’t have much impact on. This is going to be a highly politicized issue, it’s a federal issue, it’s a federal constitutional issue and it will also be very political — and from my perspective at least, I wouldn’t be anxious to have that debate in the state Legislature. I think that wastes our time.”

Cadman was asked about the topic hours earlier at a morning press conference. Cadman suggested that he simply expected the battle over the nomination to run its course, that President Obama and the members of the Senate Republican majority were bound to see their obligations in regard to the vacancy differently.

“Both sides have a job to do, so I think the political posturing right now is somewhat unfortunate,” Cadman said. “This is actually the time when the Republican Senate would have an influence on a Democratic presidential nominee.”

“I know it’s a little bit unusual to be in this place with a nominee with so little left of a presidential term, but it is what it is,” Cadman said. “Both sides have a job to do.”

An hour later, Cadman’s comments were darting around the social-media-sphere and the Denver Post’s John Frank wrote a blog that fueled controversy. Frank wrote that Cadman’s remarks seemed to run in opposition to a solidifying GOP stance on the issue, which argues Obama should allow the next president to nominate Scalia’s replacement.

At noon, roughly two hours after Frank’s piece appeared online, Cadman pushed back with a public statement.

“(N)othing I said should be interpreted as aligning me with Democrats, or against Republican colleagues, on the question of nominating and confirming a replacement for Justice Scalia,” Cadman said. “My comment that ‘both sides have a job to do’ simply meant that the Senate’s job of confirming a nominee, through its powers of advice (sic) and consent, is equal in importance to the President’s job of nominating someone. If a majority of Senators choose to reject a nominee, or delay confirmation until after President Obama leaves office, they are perfectly within their rights, in my opinion, and doing the ‘job’ the Constitution assigns them.”

To fully clarify his response, Cadman tweeted out a link an hour later to a column posted at The Federalist by Senior Editor David Harsanyi entitled “GOP Has a Duty to Reject Obama’s SCOTUS Pick.” Harsanyi’s piece makes the case that Obama is unlikely to present U.S. Senate Republicans with a nominee they will find acceptable to confirm.

“Whatever precedent says, if Republicans truly believe Obama has displayed a contempt for the Constitution, they have a moral obligation to reject his choice,” Harsanyi wrote. “Because we’re not talking about good-faith disagreements over what the Constitution says anymore, we’re talking about a party that believes enumerated powers stand in their way.”

If Cadman’s position seemed to be taking on harder tones as the hours passed, House Democratic leaders weren’t pulling any punches either.

Expounding on her remarks during the press conference, Hullinghorst said statements being issued by members of the U.S. Senate, including a statement made by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, seemed to be based primarily on political opposition to the president.

“Perhaps there are people who don’t like that (Obama is president), but the fact of the matter is, it’s his responsibility to name a successor at this point, and it is the constitutional requirement of the Senate that they review that and approve it, or not. I think that’s exactly what should happen,” Hullinghorst said.

State House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, lamented the progressively entrenched stand on the nomination being taken by congressional Republicans.

“It is unbelievable that they are seriously trying to stop the President of the United States from being able to make an appointment,” she said. “When we think about obstructionist government — we’ve seen it in the past with the federal shutdown on budget discussions — this is an example of Republicans at the federal level going too far and being obstructionist.”

With reporting by Kara Mason and Ramsey Scott.

— john@coloradostatesman.com