If he did, Mr. Biden said, “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over”. “It is the duty of the Senate, under the Constitution, to give our advice and give our consent or withhold our consent”. If a new survey is any indication, Republicans could end up sacrificing seats in the Senate if they refuse to allow a vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee until after the elections in November.
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Democrats need to net five Senate seats in 2016 to regain the majority, and if Republicans lose their advantage and the race for the White House as well, they could be forced to accept a nominee who might be more liberal than the one proposed by Obama.
Months before the 1992 presidential election, Joe Biden urged fellow US senators to shut down the nomination process and block President George H.W. Bush’s judicial picks from a confirmation vote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated nearly immediately after Scalia’s unexpected death that the Senate should not confirm a new justice until a new president assumes office.
In the wake of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the debate over whether President Obama should nominate his replacement in a contentious election year has flared up in Washington. ThinkProgress, for instance, shared a second clip from the speech, suggesting Biden actually says the opposite-that he would be willing to vote on a nominee during an election year if President Bush put forth a moderate candidate.
“During my career on the Judiciary Committee, I ensured the prompt and fair consideration of nine Supreme Court Justices and the current Senate has a constitutional duty to do the same”, he said.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid condemned McConnell’s attitude as “obstruction on steroids”.
But Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said he would meet with any nominee who came knocking. The Supreme Court now faces a precarious 4-4 ideological balance between right- and left-leaning justices as they consider cases on abortion, voting rights, Obama’s health care law and other polarizing issues.
“But I believe that so long as the public continues to split its confidence between the branches [referring to the Republican White House vs. the Democrat-controlled Senate], compromise is the responsible course both for the White House and for the Senate”.
Democrats note that in 1988, a Democratic-led Senate confirmed Anthony Kennedy to the court, though he’d been nominated by President Ronald Reagan the preceding year. “Otherwise, it seems to me, Mr. President, we will be in deep trouble as an institution”, Biden said on the floor of the Senate. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said of hearings.
Freking asked if Earnest would acknowledge that Biden’s prior words had made it more hard for Obama’s nominee to get a hearing this year.
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And I sadly predict Mr president that this is going to be one of the bitterest dirtiest presidential campaigns that we will have seen in some time.
