Vice President Joe Biden has criticized Senate Republicans’ plan to prevent President Obama from filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, saying in an interview last week that he thinks Republicans “don’t believe” the strategy “makes sense”.
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198-c-15-(Mark Sherman, AP correspondent)-“and acerbic dissents”-AP correspondent Mark Sherman reports Chief Justice John Roberts paid tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia at the opening of Monday’s court session”. “I’d rather lose the Senate majority with a fight over first principles than the Supreme Court of the United States without a fight”.
“It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is underway – and it is – action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over”, Biden said in June of 1992.
And if Obama does name a replacement, which he has said he will, the majority controlled Republican Senate has already made its intention known that they will delay or even block the hearing process. Otherwise, it seems to me Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution.
Obama has said he intends to nominate a new justice before his term ends. There was no Supreme Court vacancy in that presidential election year, but Biden spoke against the committee’s consideration of any possible nominee before the election.
“(Biden) knows what the Senate should do. He noted that he presided over the process that allowed Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan nominee, to be confirmed in the 1988 presidential election year. Again, Article II leaves no room for doubt as to what the president must do: “He shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint… judges of the Supreme Court”.
The battle over Scalia’s replacement is just getting started, and voters are still making up their minds about it. Both parties, as well as outside groups, are only beginning their public campaigns for and against an Obama nominee.
The meeting will meet in the Capitol shortly before Republicans host their Tuesday lunch, a McConnell aide said.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley, argued that presidential election years are inappropriate for considering high court nominations.
Grassley said Biden “was and remains a friend”.
Two candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate want Republican Sen.
Kirk wrote in an opinion piece in the Chicago Sun-Times that he recognizes the right of any president to choose a Supreme Court nominee and he looks forward to Obama picking one for the Senate to consider for confirmation.
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Biden concluded by saying his record as Judiciary Committee Chairman “is hard to beat”.
