Now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee will not be considered at all, he and fellow Republicans are grasping for justification for this unprecedented obstruction. They think they found it in an old speech dug up by the Washington Post that Vice President Joe Biden gave in 1992, when he was in the Senate.
In justifying obstruction in a floor speech Monday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley called it the "Biden Rules," referring to this part of what Biden said: "It is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow or within the next several weeks or resigns at the end of the summer, [then-President George H.W. Bush] should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not name a nominee until after the November election is completed." What Grassley left out was that this was said in late June of that election year, not long before the Senate left for what was basically the rest of the year. Not mid-February, and those four months make a significant difference. McConnell also invoked Biden in his floor speech Tuesday morning, in which he declared any nomination dead before arrival.
What both senators are failing to acknowledge is this part of what Biden said:
"I believe that so long as the public continues to split its confidence between the branches, compromise is the responsible course both for the White House and for the Senate. […] Therefore I stand by my position, Mr. President, if the President [George H.W. Bush] 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."
Biden reiterated that in a statement released Monday, saying what the Republicans are doing "is not an accurate description of my views on the subject. Indeed, as I conclude in the same statement critics are pointing to today, urged the Senate and White House to work together to overcome partisan differences to ensure the court functions as the Founding Fathers intended. That remains my position today." It's also worth noting this from the ThinkProgress article: under Biden's leadership as Judiciary Chairman, "the Senate confirmed more nominees, 11, to the courts of appeals that year than in any other presidential election year in United States history." So there's that.
The fact remains that in modern history Democrats have never refused to consider a Republican president's nominee, at any time. They've never denied a nominee either hearings or a confirmation vote. While they were adamantly opposed to Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork, they allowed a vote which failed (with six Republicans voting against it).
