By Eric Stock

CHICAGO – Many prominent Republicans have called for President Barack Obama to hold off on nominating a new Supreme Court justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia, but a GOP consultant rejects that idea.

Former Illinois Republican Party chairman Pat Brady told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin the president can nominate whomever he wants, whenever he wants, but GOP senators who don’t like it can simply vote down the nominee.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Brady on WJBC.

“If you really want to kill a nomination, there are about a billion ways to do that,” Brady said. “To jump up and say we just aren’t going to listen to the president is bad politics.”

Several Republican presidential candidates have said the president is a lame duck and the issue should be left for the voters to decide.

“It’s bad for the image (Democrats) like to portray Republicans as obstructionists,” Brady said. “It just plays into that.”

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget address this week, while largely panned by Illinois Democrats, could be the start of an agreement toward a spending plan for 2017, even though this year’s budget is still in flux.

“I think there’s a sense there could be come movement (toward a budget), so hopefully we can get something worked out,” Brady said. “I’m not super-optimistic, but I’m more optimistic than I was last week.

Brady said Rauner is showing he’s willing to take the political hit for making budget cuts that legislators weren’t willing to take when they gave him a deficit budget last year and left it to him to make reductions. Brady says lawmakers realize the budget stalemate, already eight months old, can’t go on much longer.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].