Sen. Collins favors hearings on Supreme Court nominee

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk has broken with fellow Republicans by saying he “looks forward” to President Barack Obama nominating a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Making the announcement in the Chicago Sun-Times, Kirk said that its the constitutional duty of the Senate to consider a nominee, regardless of party.

CRAWFORD: Here is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday.

“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, ” Biden said at the time on the Senate floor, according to a C-SPAN recording of his remarks.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, appeared visibly angry after he learned that they would block the nomination.

“The Senate has exhibited little tendency to leave Supreme Court nominations without a final vote simply out of reluctance to act, or to use inaction as an indirect means of denying confirmation”, a 2011 report by the research service said.

(Photo: Reuters/Jim Bourg)The casket of late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia arrives at the Supreme Court, where Scalia’s body is lying in repose in the court’s Great Hall in Washington February 19, 2016.

“There are some who believe that the president, having won the election, should have complete authority to appoint his nominee…”

MCCONNELL: It is today the American people who are best positioned to help make this important decision.

The vice president, however, said Monday that that wasn’t all of his statement. And embedded in the roughly 20,000 words he delivered on the Senate floor that day were rebuttals to virtually every point Democrats has brought forth in the past week to argue to the consideration of Obama’s nominee.

“All we want them to do is to do their job”, said Reid, who accused Republicans of doing the bidding of Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, a Texas senator. In June of 1992, Biden said the Senate should not consider a Supreme Court nominee during an election year.

New York Senator 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. A committee review and a hearing is the first step in the process.

In a statement, Andrea Zopp, the underdog in the March 15 primary, used the occasion to criticize both Duckworth and Kirk for not offering “specifics”, though its hard to see what more can be said until Obama taps a nominee.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice”.

“Before the president has even named a nominee to the Supreme Court, Republicans are doing what everyone thought was impossible”, he said.

Jeff Flake of Arizona, another Judiciary Committee member, on Monday backed McConnell’s stance.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY [R-IA]: In his heart of hearts, he understands why this Senate must do what he said it must do in 1992.

GOP members of the committee met with McConnell in a closed-door session and emerged with a simple message: “No hearing, no vote”, said Sen. Lindsey Graham said the Judiciary Committee reached a “consensus” on that during a special meeting Tuesday.