Some senior U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved to slam the door shut on any Supreme Court nomination President Barack Obama will make as they voiced opposition to even committee hearings on a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
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But in a speech on the Senate floor in June 1992, Biden, then the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said there should be a different standard for a Supreme Court vacancy “that would occur in the full throes of an election year”.
Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who heads the judiciary panel, called the remarks “The Biden Rules” and said the vice president “knows what the Senate should do”.
Multiple Republicans have voiced their agreement with McConnell’s decision that the Senate will not consider a presidential appointee; while Democrats support President Obama’s decision to nominate a justice before his term ends. The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, as preparations were being made to honor Justice Antonin Scalia. As it turned out, there was no opening on the court that year.
“I will be supporting the filibuster because I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values”, Obama said in January 2006.
Within hours of the news on February 13 of Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisted that the next president should be the one to fill the seat, leaving a possible 4-4 split on cases over the next eleven months. “In this instance, we actually want the Republicans in the Senate to do precisely as Vice President Biden did when he served in the Senate”. “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”.
But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley delivered an emphatic argument against holding hearings, citing not his own reasoning, but instead a lengthy floor speech then-Sen.
“There’s not going to be any particular position on any particular issue that determines whether I nominate them, but I’m going to nominate somebody who is indisputably qualified for the seat”, he said.
But Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Monday that he doesn’t expect the Senate to recess at all for the remainder of the year.
Collins, who is not facing re-election until 2020, said on Monday the Senate had an obligation to hold public hearings on Obama’s nominee.
Independent Sen. Angus King disagrees, saying last week that the Senate has an obligation to consider any Supreme Court nominee.
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It’s an unsurprising decision to keep the Senate technically in session given McConnell’s hardline stance to prevent the confirmation of a nominee to replace Scalia before the next president is installed in 2017. “The Founding Fathers never intended the Senate to simply run out the clock on its constitutional duties, subverting the president’s authority and leaving the judiciary in absolute limbo”.
