Did Joe Biden’s 1992 Comments on Supreme Court Nominees Show Democrat Hypocrisy?

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans said Tuesday that the panel won’t even hold a hearing on anyone Obama names, much less award them with a floor vote, an unprecedented move for the modern-day Senate. Lindsey Graham said the Judiciary Committee reached a “consensus” on that during a special meeting Tuesday.

McConnell and other Republicans have said the high court vacancy should not be filled during a presidential election year and that the voters – by electing the next president – should choose who makes that nomination.

“I believe the overwhelming view of the Republican conference of the Senate is that this nomination, this vacancy, should not be filled by this lame-duck president”, McConnell told reporters after his conference met behind closed doors for lunch.

But when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June 1992, Biden suggested Democrats should “seriously consider” not holding confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court nominee put forward by President George H.W. Bush if a justice were to retire in the final months of the presidential election year. “In this case, the Senate will withhold it”.

Republican leaders are jumping on some comments made by Vice President Joe Biden when he was a senator 24 years ago.

Justice Samuel Alito, speaking to students Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington, said, “There’s nothing in the Constitution that specifies the size of the Supreme Court”.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, told CNN that the Senate should take the process “one step at a time”, but also welcomed a nominee from Obama.

He then tweeted that he presided over the nomination of Justice Kennedy.

“I also recognize my duty as a senator to either vote in support or opposition to that nominee following a fair and thorough hearing along with a complete and transparent release of all requested information”, Kirk added. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate majority leader, that the decision should wait until after Obama has left office.

McConnell cited past statements from Sen. To say that he opposed filling a court vacancy, he said is “not an accurate description of my views”.

The bench of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is seen draped with black wool crepe in memor …

This is just one volley in the war between President Obama and the Republican controlled Senate over when Scalia’s replacement should be nominated.

Ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, again criticized Rob Portman, the Republican incumbent, today for refusing to consider any candidate for a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy nominated by President Barack Obama.

Grassley said Biden “was and remains a friend”.

Describing the Republican tactics as “hard to comprehend”, Reid said senator Chuck Grassley is set to “go down as the most obstructionist judiciary chair in the history of our country”, worse even than those in the civil rights era.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump tweeted during the mass: “I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a Mosque?” – Biden, in a statement on Monday. Obama has said he will indeed nominate someone.