“Because Vice President Biden in 1992 in the same speech that you noted said if the president consults and cooperates with the Senate, or moderates his selections absent consultation, then his nominees may enjoy my support as did Justices Kennedy and Souter”. “It is the duty of the Senate, under the Constitution, to give our advice and give our consent or withhold our consent”.
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That is, of course, exactly the argument that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies have been making ever since Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13 – that President Obama should let the seat stay vacant because it’s an election year.
In response, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused McConnell of taking his cues from Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. With the USA presidential election looming on November 8, Republicans are aiming to allow the next president to fill Scalia’s vacancy, hoping that a Republican will be elected.
Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time and said that should a Supreme Court vacancy arise, then-President George H.W. Bush shouldn’t nominate a replacement until after that fall’s presidential election. The history of Supreme Court nominations is dominated by tales of picks the Senate debat…
“Some critics say that one excerpt of my speech is evidence that I oppose filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year”. In both cases the numbers reinforce how perilous it is with independents for Portman and Toomey to take the position that they’re not confirming someone no matter what- in OH 59% of them say that makes them less likely to vote for Portman to just 15% more likely, and for Toomey it’s 55% of independents less likely to vote for him based on that stance to only 24% more inclined to support him.
The back-and forth underscored the high-stakes political showdown that Scalia’s death has sparked, a clash that each party thinks will motivate its voters to stream to the polls in November and has already kicked each side’s interest groups into high gear.
The Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) released a survey Monday showing the political peril of objecting to any nominee Obama may put forward, as leading Senate Republicans have indicated they will do. Years later, before he became President, Barack Obama tried to block another nomination.
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk believes the U.S. Senate should hear and vote on President Obama’s nominee for the United States Supreme Court.
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“The Senate too, Mr. President, must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year”, Biden continued. Chuck Schumer voted to filibuster Justice Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2005.
