GOP Senators: No hearing, no vote for Obama Court pick

In McConnell’s speech, the GOP Senate leader cited a 1992 speech by Vice President Joe Biden, who was then a DE senator, in which he said “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”.

“If someone steps down, I would highly recommend the President not name someone, not send a name up”, Biden, then the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, told the newspaper, noting how close it was to the November elections.

But Republican members of the committee met with McConnell and emerged with a simple message: “No hearing, no vote”, said Sen. They argue that the decision is too important to be determined by a lame-duck president and that voters in November’s election should determine whether Scalia’s successor is replaced by a Republican or a Democrat. The next justice could tilt the high court’s ideological balance of power.

“Presidents have a right to nominate just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent”, McConnell said.

McConnell gathered Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in his suite in the Capitol, just off the Senate floor, to confer before a weekly policy luncheon attended by all Republican senators.

“In short, there will not be action taken”, McConnell told reporters.

There are many obvious reasons why Supreme Court seats should not be left open until Mitch McConnell personally gives his stamp of approval to whoever the American people elect as president. Biden has since said he was speaking hypothetically because there was no Supreme Court vacancy at the time. He noted that some Republicans, including Sen.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, in line to succeed Reid as Democratic leader next year, predicted that Republicans would back down like they did in the 2013 government shutdown fight, and that it would hurt them politically. “The public has not given either party a mandate to remake the court into a body reflective of a strong vision of our respective philosophies”, he said, “and both our parties should finally, honestly, admit to that fact”.

“In the same statement critics are pointing to today, I urged the Senate and White House to work together to overcome partisan differences to ensure the court functions as the Founding Fathers intended”, Biden said in a Monday statement.

“I think we should not confirm someone this year, I think we should let the people weigh in”, said Sen.

At least one of those senators, Republican Mark Kirk of IL, has suggested holding hearings, putting him at odds with fellow Republicans. What they really mean is they don’t want a more liberal justice, whom Obama is likely to nominate, to fill the Supreme Court space.

Ultimately, though, “the Senate should discount the philosophy of the nominee”, McConnell concluded, except in extreme circumstances, such as the nomination of a Nazi or Communist.