Biden To Use His Own Record To Bash GOP Senate On SCOTUS Blockade //TPM

Biden To Use His Own Record To Bash GOP Senate On SCOTUS Blockade// Talking Points Memo

By Tierney Sneed March 24, 2016 

The latest play by President Obama’s administration to pressure Republicans to consider Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is a speech Vice President Joe Biden will give at Georgetown University Law School Thursday afternoon. Biden will use his own record as a member of Senate Judiciary Committee -- which typically leads the Senate's confirmation process -- to argue the Senate should hold hearings and a vote for Garland, according to excerpts of the speech provided to TPM.

“In my time as the ranking Democrat or as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I was responsible for eight nominees to the Supreme Court—some I supported, others I voted against,” Biden will say. “And in all that time, every nominee was greeted by committee members. Every nominee got a committee hearing. Every nominee got out of the committee to the Senate floor. And every nominee, including Justice Kennedy—in an election year— got an up or down vote by the Senate. Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time.”


Biden will also argue that a vacancy on the court left for months on end while Republicans refuse to consider any nominee is harmful for the country.

“The Framers designed our system to give one Supreme Court the responsibility of resolving conflicts in the lower courts,” BIden will say. “If those conflicts are allowed to stand, we end up with a patchwork Constitution inconsistent with equal justice and the rule of law.”

Biden will go on to argue that, “The meaning and extent of your federal constitutional rights ...all could depend on where you happen to live.”