Biden protected the nation from Bork as a Supreme Court justice
Biden played a more consequential role in the history of the Supreme Court than almost any senator in American history. As the longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over the confirmation hearings of five Justices, and, over his long career, he voted on the nominations of more than a dozen Justices.
In 1986, the year before Biden took over as committee chairman, Antonin Scalia was approved by the Senate in a vote of 98-0. The norm was to treat the senate as a “rubber stamp” for whomever the president wanted.
Then came Robert Bork.
And now Biden was in charge.
In 1987, Reagan was still popular, and Bork had a distinguished résumé, as a former Yale law professor, Solicitor General, and judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As Senator Ted Kennedy pointed out in a searing attack on Bork on the day of his nomination, Bork was also a thoroughgoing reactionary, who had dedicated his career to opposing civil rights and women’s rights. The outcome of the nomination could have gone either way.
<Biden> used the confirmation hearings to conduct a meticulous dissection of the nominee’s record as a scholar and judge. Biden called Laurence Tribe, the Harvard law professor, as a witness, to explain how far out of the mainstream Bork’s views were, and how perilous his confirmation would be for the Court and the country. The hearings mobilized popular opinion against Bork, and the Judiciary Committee voted against him by nine to five, and the Senate rejected him, fifty-eight to forty-two.
Biden’s office planned a celebration wit champagne, but Biden put a stop to it. “There’s nothing here to celebrate,” he told them. “There is a man sitting at home whose whole life has been devoted to sitting on the supreme court. Imagine how he feels.”
Joe did what he thought was right in defeating Bork, but he wasn’t going to celebrate while another person suffered.
and what happened when Bork was defeated?
Bork’s defeat had immense consequences because Reagan ultimately nominated Anthony Kennedy to fill that seat.
In confirmation hearings, Biden has been very much himself—a decent, honorable man, and an insufferable windbag.…. But if Biden never did another thing as a Senator than protect the nation from Robert Bork as a Supreme Court Justice, he will have a more significant, and noble, legacy than many Presidential candidates
Reagan realized that Biden would stand in the way of any far right candidate so he brought him into the oval office and showed him a list of five possible new nominees. Biden said, of the men suggested, he most preferred Kennedy.
if Biden hadn’t defeated Bork then we would have had Bork instead of Kennedy and we wouldn’t have had Planned Parenthood v. Casey which upheld the right to abortion. Or Roper v. Simmons (2005) which banned the death penalty for juveniles or, of course, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) which legalized gay marriage.
and that wasn’t the only effect of Biden changing the Senate committee from one of “rubber stamp” on confirmations to one that actually held real hearings.
Just one year after the conservative Mr. Scalia's unanimous confirmation the winds had changed dramatically. The Senate had hitherto proceeded on the principle that it owed the president deference on his judicial selections. No longer.
"The framers clearly intended the Senate to serve as a check on the president and guarantee the independence of the judiciary," Mr. Biden said in August 1987 in defense of his newfound opposition to Judge Bork. "The Senate has an undisputed right to consider judicial philosophy." …..
Mr. Biden's obstruction was further rewarded by the first President Bush. In attempting to dodge controversy, he gave liberals David Souter, whose appeal was enhanced by the fact that he had been a federal judge for less than a year and had almost no paper trail.
And for all of that, we have Joe Biden to thank.
